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DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

THE  JESUP  LECTURES 
1916-1917 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
SALES  AGENTS 


NEW  YORK 

LEMCKE  &  BUECHNER 
30-32  West  27TH  Street 

LONDON 

HUMPHREY  MILFORD 
Amen  Corner,  E.  C. 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LECTURES 


DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 


BY 


ROBERT  SESSIONS  WOODWORTH,  Ph.  D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  PSYCHOLOGY,  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
1918 
All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1918 
By  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.        Published  January,  1918 


!%. 


Biology'" 
Kdd'l 
GIFT 


To 
G.  M.  W. 


;        290 


BF/3/ 


BIOLOGY 
LIBRARY 


•Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/dynamicpsychologOOwoodrich 


PREFACE 

The  Jesup  Lectures  for  191 6- 191 7,  given  at  the  Amer- 
ican Museum  of  Natural  History  with  the  cooperation  of 
Columbia  University,  are  here  reproduced  with  some 
enlargements  and  modifications. 


CONTENTS 

Page 

I.   The  Modern  Movement  in  Psychology  i 

II.   The  Problems  and  Methods  of  Psychology  19 

III.  Native  Equipment  of  Man  47 

IV.  Acquired  or  Learned  Equipment  81 
V.   The  Factor  of  Selection  and  Control  114 

VI.   The  Factor  of  Originality  140 

VII.    Drive  and  Mechanism  in  Abnormal  Behavior  167 

VIII.    Drive  and  Mechanism  in  Social  Behavior  192 

Index  207 


DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 
I 

THE  MODERN  MOVEMENT  IN  PSYCHOLOGY 

Like  other  ancient  branches  of  learning,  psychology 
has  undergone  in  the  last  hundred  years  a  change  and 
development  amounting  to  a  revolution.  Not  only  has 
there  been  rapid  growth  in  knowledge  and  in  the  num- 
ber of  persons  devoting  their  time  and  ingenuity  to  the 
increase  of  knowledge  in  this  field,  but  there  has  oc- 
curred a  remarkable  change  in  attitude,  method,  and 
standards.  The  change  can  be  characterized,  in  a  word, 
by  saying  that  psychology  has  become  an  empirical 
science.  It  has  ceased  to  be  a  chapter  in  general  philos- 
ophy, and  become  one  of  the  'special  sciences*.  Leaving 
the  parental  roof,  it  has  followed  its  older  brothers, 
physics,  chemistry,  and  biology,  out  into  the  world,  and 
set  up  business  for  itself.  The  transformation  of  psy- 
chology is  a  phase  of  the  general  scientific  movement 
properly  to  be  called  the  great  outstanding  fact  in  the 
history  of  the  nineteenth  century.  As  the  social  move- 
ment of  the  past  century  was  a  result  of  the  industrial 
development,  and  this  in  turn  dependent  on  the  progress 
of  science,  the  latter  may  rightly  be  named  the  real 
fundamental  movement  of  the  century.  It  was  the  ex- 
tension of  scientific  interest  and  method  from  the  inor- 
ganic world  to  the  realm  of  living  creatures,  and  from 
life  in  general  to  the  special  forms  of  living  activity 
which  we  call  mental,  that  fructified  the  mental  philos- 


2  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

ophy  of  the  older  day,  and  gave  us  the  psychology  of 
the  present. 

At  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century,  psychology, 
as  we  call  it  today,  though  the  name  was  then  little 
used,  could  already  boast  of  a  long  history.  It  could 
scarcely  have  been  true  that  the  philosophic  minds  of 
early  days  should  have  omitted  from  their  view  the 
mental  performances  of  mankind.  Socrates,  in  fact, 
taught  that  to  'know  thyself  was  the  prime  factor  in 
wisdom ;  and  Aristotle,  among  the  numerous  writings  in 
which  he  reduced  to  order  the  thought  of  the  ancient 
Greeks,  composed  a  treatise  on  psychology,  the  'science 
of  the  soul',  destined  to  remain  for  many  centuries 
without  a  serious  rival.  In  the  early  modern  period, 
while  'natural  philosophy',  developing  a  technique  of 
its  own,  split  off  from  the  parent  stem  and  became  the 
science  of  physics,  'mental  philosophy'  remained  bound 
up  with  general  philosophy  to  such  a  degree  that  now 
it  is  almost  impossible,  in  reading  the  philosophers, 
to  disentangle  their  psychology  from  their  teachings  on 
logic,  ethics,  and  the  criticism  of  knowledge. 

Locke,  the  founder  of  the  British  empirical  school 
in  philosophy,  wrote  an  Essay  Concerning  Human 
Understanding,  a  title  appropriate,  one  would  suppose, 
for  a  chapter  in  psychology.  But  Locke's  dominant 
interest  was  not  precisely  psychological;  he  was  less 
concerned  with  the  actual  process  of  knowing  than  with 
the  validity  of  knowledge,  and  was  therefore  contented 
with  a  rather  sketchy  treatment  of  the  processes  them- 
selves. Rejecting  the  view,  strongly  held  in  his  day, 
that  certain  fundamental  ideas  were  innate,  he  taught 
that  all  ideas  are  ultimately  derived  from  the  indi- 


MODERN  MOVEMENT  IN  PSYCHOLOGY  3 

vidual's  experience,  and  have  accordingly  no  more 
validity  than  the  experiences  on  which  they  are  based. 
Simple  ideas  of  color,  form,  solidity,  number,  etc.,  come 
to  us  through  the  senses  from  external  objects,  while 
simple  ideas  of  remembering,  thinking,  and  other  mental 
operations  come  to  us  from  the  occurrence  of  these 
operations  within  us.  These  simple  ideas  we  compound, 
compare,  and  abstract,  and  thus  acquire  the  great 
variety  of  our  complex  ideas.  Knowledge  is  the  per- 
ception of  the  agreement  or  disagreement  between  two 
ideas;  it  is  therefore  limited  to  our  ideas,  as  these  are 
limited  to  our  experience ;  and  it  is  further  limited  by  our 
inability  to  discover  agreement  or  disagreement  between 
many  of  the  ideas  which  we  possess.  Further,  acci- 
dental coupling  of  ideas  in  our  experience  may  make  it 
impossible  for  us  to  see  disagreement  and  incoherence 
where  such  exists ;  and  'enthusiasm'  may  lead  us  to  make 
assertions  where  we  have  no  real  perception.  These  ex- 
cerpts from  Locke  illustrate  the  trend  of  his  interest; 
his  attention  passes  lightly  over  the  actual  processes  of 
thought  in  its  eagerness  to  evaluate  their  results;  yet 
Locke  is  undoubtedly  an  important  landmark  in  the 
progress  towards  psychology. 

This  absorption  in  the  problem  of  the  validity  of 
knowledge  dominated  Hume,  also,  and  the  rest  of 
Locke's  successors,  both  British  and  continental,  down 
to  and  into  the  nineteenth  century.  They  had  also  an 
interest  in  human  conduct,  but  it  was  rather  an  ethical 
interest,  concerned  with  what  man  ought  to  do,  than 
a  psychological,  concerned  with  what  he  does;  or  the 
latter,  only  as  a  basis  for  the  former.  True  psychologi- 
cal knowledge  was,  however,  slowly  accumulating,  and 


4  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

the  time  seemed  ripe  for  the  splitting  off  from  philos- 
ophy of  a  branch  of  study  which,  leaving  aside  the 
philosophical  implications  of  the  information  gained, 
should  set  itself  whole-heartedly  to  the  task  of  exam- 
ining the  mental  activities  of  men.  One  thing  was 
necessary  before  such  a  splitting-off  could  occur — a 
recognition  of  the  urgent  need  for  more  facts,  and  for 
fruitful  and  trustworthy  methods  of  obtaining  the  facts. 
Many  of  these  psychologists,  or  philosophers,  of  the 
pre-scientific  age  were  distinctly  empirical  in  tendency, 
and  cannot  fairly  be  accused  of  'spinning  their  theories 
out  of  their  own  heads'.  They  endeavored  to  utilize 
such  facts  as  they  knew,  and  to  base  their  conclusions 
on  their  experience ;  but  they  did  not  realize  their  great 
need  for  more  facts  and  more  experience.  They  followed 
the  natural  tendency  to  draw  conclusions  from  past  ex- 
perience, while  the  modem  scientific  standard  requires 
that  not  conclusions,  but  only  hypotheses,  should  be 
drawn  from  past  experience,  the  conclusion  to  follow 
upon  the  testing  of  the  hypothesis  by  new  facts.  In 
other  words,  a  scientific  conclusion  is  a  hypothesis  that 
has  proved  successful  in  predicting  hitherto  unknown 
facts.  This  reserve  in  accepting  the  suggestions  of  past 
experience,  and  this  zeal  for  new  facts  to  test  definite 
questions,  psychology  had  to  acquire  before  becoming  a 
true  science.  The  new  attitude,  however,  did  not  arise 
within  the  ranks  of  the  philosophical  psychologists,  but 
was  imported  from  without. 

The  push  from  outside  that  changed  the  course  of 
psychology  came  from  physiology,  itself  an  ancient 
branch  of  medicine  that  had  undergone  a  revolution  at 
about  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  had 


MODERN  MOVEMENT  IN  PSYCHOLOGY  5 

split  off  from  its  parent  stem,  becoming  distinctively 
and  actively  an  experimental  science.  The  idea  that 
the  functions  of  the  bodily  organs  were  to  be  learned  by 
experiment  took  hold  early  in  the  century,  and  many 
experiments  were  tried  on  the  muscles,  glands,  heart, 
nerves,  and  brain.  Among  the  organs  offering  them- 
selves for  such  study  were  the  eye,  ear,  and  other  sense 
organs ;  and  in  fact  they  were  attacked  early  rather  than 
late  by  the  physiologists,  because  their  action  could 
largely  be  studied  in  the  human  subject,  without  opera- 
tions of  a  surgical  nature  such  as  are  necessary  in  exam- 
ining most  of  the  organs.  It  was  simply  necessary,  for 
example,  to  have  a  trustworthy  observer  tell  what  he 
saw  when  the  physical  conditions  of  vision  were  ar- 
ranged in  some  definite  way  to  test  a  particular  ques- 
tion. Newton's  decomposition  of  white  light  by  use  of 
the  prism  had  been  followed  up  by  the  students  of 
natural  philosophy,  and  about  the  year  1800  Thomas 
Young  had  described  some  very  important  experiments 
on  the  mechanism  of  the  eye,  and  propounded  a  theory 
of  color  vision  which  still  numbers  many  adherents. 
Other  physicists,  among  whom  may  be  mentioned 
Benjamin  Franklin  and  Count  Rumford,  had  inci- 
dentally made  important  observations  on  the  eye  and 
its  sensations.  In  the  early  decades  of  the  nineteenth 
century  there  was  a  great  increase  in  the  amount  of  work 
done  upon  the  eye,  and  many  new  facts  were  added  to 
the  store  of  knowledge,  while  at  the  same  time  many 
fresh  problems  came  into  view.  The  invention,  as  the 
outcome  of  physiological  experiments,  of  the  stereo- 
scope by  Wheatstone  in  1833,  and  of  a  rudimentary 
form  of  the  moving  picture  machine  by  Plateau  in  1832, 


6  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

may  be  taken  as  illustrating  the  importance  of  the  work 
done  by  the  physicists  and  physiologists  of  this  period 
in  preparing  the  way  for  a  science  of  psychology ;  since, 
evidently,  the  problems  raised  by  the  successful  work- 
ings of  these  instruments — as  to  how,  in  the  one  case, 
two  properly  chosen  flat  pictures  or  diagrams,  one 
placed  before  each  eye,  can  create  so  strong  an  impres- 
sion of  solidity — and  as  to  how,  in  the  other  case,  a 
rapid  sequence  of  pictures  of  an  object  in  different  posi- 
tions can  make  us  see  the  object  in  motion — evidently 
such  problems  are  psychological. 

Similar,  though  less  extensive  work  was  being  done 
on  the  sense  of  hearing;  and  Weber,  about  1825,  made 
a  number  of  important  discoveries  regarding  the  sense 
of  touch  and  the  perception  of  distance,  temperature, 
and  weight  upon  the  skin.  Weber  is  an  especially 
notable  figure  in  the  history  of  psychology  for  his  experi- 
ments on  the  perception  of  differences  and  the  general- 
ization he  drew  from  them.  A  small  difference  between 
two  weights,  he  found,  could  be  observed  provided  the 
weights  themselves  were  small ;  but  as  they  were  made 
heavier,  the  difference  between  them  had  to  be  pro- 
portionately increased  in  order  to  remain  perceptible. 
He  concluded  from  this  and  similar  facts  that  the  per- 
ception of  difference  in  magnitude  is  a  perception  of  the 
ratio  of  the  magnitudes,  and  not  of  the  absolute  amount 
of  difference  between  them.  This  generalization,  later 
named  'Weber's  law',  came  to  be  regarded  as  one  of 
the  chief  comer-stones  of  the  edifice  of  experimental 
psychology. 

In  view  of  this  large  growth  of  what  was  really  psy- 
chological information  in  the  hands  of  the  physiologists, 


MODERN  MOVEMENT  IN  PSYCHOLOGY  7 

and  in  view,  on  the  other  side,  of  the  increasing  tendency 
within  the  ranks  of  the  philosophers  for  some  to  spe- 
ciaHze  in  the  study  of  mental  philosophy,  we  might 
have  expected  a  union  of  these  two  tendencies  before 
the  middle  of  the  century  into  a  science  of  the  modern 
type.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  probably  because  experi- 
mental methods  were  not  yet  ready  for  an  attack  on  the 
problems  most  interesting  to  the  mental  philosophers, 
such  a  union  did  not  occur  for  another  generation, 
though  meanwhile  we  find  the  mental  philosophers 
becoming  more  empirical,  as  evidenced  by  the  works  of 
Bain,  and  a  section  of  the  physiologists  becoming  more 
psychological,  as  seen  especially  in  the  case  of  Helm- 
holtz.  The  latter,  a  scientific  student  of  the  first  rank, 
worked  over  the  whole  existing  stock  of  knowledge  on 
vision  and  hearing,  testing  everything  for  himself,  and 
adding  many  fresh  discoveries;  and  summed  up  the 
whole  in  two  great  books,  one  on  vision  and  one  on  hear- 
ing, published  about  the  year  i860.  He  also,  in  the 
course  of  an  investigation  into  the  speed  of  nerve  trans- 
mission, gave  the  first  measurement  of  the  'reaction 
time',  a  subject  of  study  which  was  at  once  taken  up 
with  energy  by  the  Dutch  physiologist  Bonders. 

Another  name  to  be  mentioned  along  with  Helmholtz 
is  that  of  Fechner,  a  professor  of  physics,  with  varied 
interests,  which  included  a  somewhat  mystical  vein  of 
philosophy.  While  ruminating  over  the  problem  of  the 
relation  of  the  physical  and  psychical  worlds,  he  came 
across  the  work  of  Weber,  already  mentioned,  on  the 
perception  of  small  differences  in  weights  and  other 
physical  stimuli,  and  conceived  the  idea  that  this  type 
of  experiment  afforded  a  means  of  establishing  definite 


8  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

quantitative  relations  between  the  stimulus,  represent- 
ing the  physical  world,  and  the  resulting  sensation, 
representing  the  psychical.  He  accordingly  began  ex- 
tensive experimentation  along  this  line,  devised  appro- 
priate methods  for  conducting  such  experiments  and 
for  treating  their  results,  and  after  years  of  labor  pub- 
lished in  i860  a  book  which  he  called  Psychophysics. 
Although  this  work  has  not  been  generally  accepted  as 
possessing  the  philosophical  significance  which  its 
author  intended  and  indicated  by  its  title,  it  proved  to 
be  of  great  importance  on  the  psychological  side,  be- 
cause it  showed  the  way  of  accurate  experiment  on  cer- 
tain psychological  problems.  Ten  or  fifteen  years  later, 
the  same  author  applied  somewhat  similar  methods  of 
experiment  to  questions  of  esthetics,  and  proposed  that 
a  science  of  esthetics  should  be  developed  'from  below 
up',  by  starting  with  experimental  determinations  of 
preferences  for  colors,  shapes,  and  other  simple  objects, 
and  working  up  towards  the  complex  objects  of  art. 

The  situation  in  1870,  th^i,  was  about  this.  We  have 
the  mental  philosophers,  best  represented  by  Bain  or 
by  the  Herbartians  in  Germany,  disposed  to  devote 
their  attention  to  the  senses  and  intellect,  the  emotions 
and  will,  as  matters  deserving  of  study  for  their  own 
sakes  without  regard  to  ulterior  philosophical  considera- 
tions ;  and  on  the  other  side  we  have  a  large  and  grow- 
ing fund  of  information  on  the  senses  and  sense  per- 
ception, the  speed  of  simple  mental  operations,  and 
related  topics,  and  we  have  a  number  of  experimental 
procedures  well  worked  out  and  known  to  be  usable. 
The  man  in  whom  these  two  streams  most  definitely 
came  together  was  Wundt.    Beginning  as  a  physiologist, 


MODERN  MOVEMENT  IN  PSYCHOLOGY  9 

largely  under  the  influence  of  Helmholtz  and  Fechner, 
but  also  of  the  philosopher  Herbart,  he  soon  switched  to 
what  he  named  'physiological  psychology',  meaning 
by  that  term  a  psychology  studied  by  the  method  of 
physiology,  namely,  by  experiment,  and  taking  full 
account  of  the  relevant  information  to  be  had  from 
physiology.  He  published  a  book  with  this  title  in  1 874. 
Soon  after  that,  he  became  professor  of  philosophy  in 
the  University  of  Leipzig,  where  he  established  in  1879 
the  first  definitely  recognized  psychological  laboratory, 
and  began  to  send  out  pupils  trained  in  experimental 
psychology  to  found  laboratories  in  other  universities. 
Many  were  founded  in  the  next  fifteen  years,  especially 
around  1890.  It  would,  however,  be  a  mistake  to  con- 
clude that  Wundt  was  the  sole  founder  of  experimental 
psychology;  for  similar  beginnings  were  made  almost 
simultaneously  with  his,  at  Berlin  and  Gottingen,  and 
at  Harvard  and  Johns  Hopkins,  by  men  not  pupils  of 
Wundt  but  influenced  directly  by  Fechner,  Helmholtz, 
and  other  physiologists. 

The  scope  of  experimental  psychology  in  1880  was  not 
by  any  means  as  wide  as  that  of  mental  philosophy. 
The  physicists  and  physiologists  had  shown  how  to 
study  the  senses  and  certain  sorts  of  sense  perception 
and  how  to  measure  the  time  of  simple  mental  opera- 
tions; and  there  were  Fechner's  methods  for  studying 
esthetic  preferences.  There  was  little  indication  that 
experiment  could  be  fruitfully  applied  to  memory, 
thinking,  will  and  emotion,  or  several  other  matters  of 
great  psychological  interest;  and  experimental  psychol- 
ogy accordingly  appeared  at  first  as  a  rather  limited  and 
technical  part  of  the  whole  subject.     It  was  not  long, 


lO  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

however,  before  Ebbinghaus  introduced  his  memory 
experiment,  the  germ  of  a  vast  amount  of  subsequent 
work.  Somewhat  later,  American  psychologists  found 
practice  and  habit  formation  to  be  fruitful  fields  for 
experimental  study;  and,  all  in  all,  the  learning  process 
has  distinctly  come  within  the  scope  of  experimental 
psychology.  Mental  imagery  and  the  association  of 
ideas  have  also  been  found  amenable  to  experiment ;  also 
feeling  and  emotion;  and  even  thinking  and  willing, 
though  elusive,  have  been  grappled  with  by  experi- 
mentalists, not  without  some  measure  of  success.  In 
short,  the  experimental  psychologists  of  the  present  day 
are  not  disposed  to  lay  down  their  arms  before  any 
enemy;  and  experimental  psychology,  from  being  a 
specialized  branch  of  the  science,  has  won  recognition 
as  a  method  of  study  available  throughout  the  whole. 
Not,  indeed,  the  only  good  method  of  obtaining  psy- 
chological facts,  it  is  probably  the  most  useful  of  all 
available  methods.  What  modern  standards  require 
is  not  necessarily  the  use  of  experiment,  but  the  use  of 
some  definite  and  trustworthy  means  of  observing  facts, 
and  the  checking  up  of  any  hypothesis  by  definite 
observations. 

If  the  foregoing  sketch  of  the  origin  and  development 
of  the  modem  movement  in  psychology  were  left  as  it 
stands,  unsupplemented,  it  would  perhaps  represent 
the  generally  received  view  of  the  movement,  but  it 
would  be  quite  misleading  in  important  respects.  It 
would  err  by  the  omission  of  certain  important  contribu- 
tions. The  new  psychology  did  not  arise  wholly  from 
the  union  of  mental  philosophy  with  physiology,  but  its 
origin  was  considerably  more  complex. 


MODERN  MOVEMENT  IN  PSYCHOLOGY  II 

Almost  simultaneously  with  Fechner's  Psychophysics 
appeared  (in  1859)  a  still  greater  book,  Darwin's 
Origin  of  Species.  The  tremendous  interest  in  biologi- 
cal evolution  that  followed  could  not  fail  to  spread 
to  the  sphere  of  mental  development.  Darwin  him- 
self wrote  on  the  Expression  of  the  Emotions  in  Man 
and  Animals,  and  Romanes  and  others  early  made 
special  studies  of  mental  evolution.  At  first,  the  facts 
relied  upon  in  this  line  of  study  were  of  the  anecdotal 
sort,  and  it  remained  for  Thorndike,  in  1899,  to  point 
out  the  fallacy  of  this  kind  of  evidence,  and  to  intro- 
duce the  experimental  study  of  animal  intelligence, 
thus  signaling  the  union  of  experimental  psychology 
with  the  biological  interest  in  mental  development. 

Evolution  was  concerned  with  the  development  of  the 
individual  as  well  as  of  the  race;  and  Darwin  himself 
made  the  first  systematic  study  of  the  mental  develop- 
ment of  a  child.  Stanley  Hall  early  made  this  field 
peculiarly  his  own,  and  a  mass  of  observations  has  been 
accumulated  which  has  no  direct  relation  to  experi- 
mental psychology,  being  controlled  rather  by  the 
biological  interest  in  evolution.  Of  late,  however,  con- 
siderable use  has  come  to  be  made  of  experiment  in  the 
study  of  child  psychology. 

Evolution  was  much  concerned  with  heredity  and 
variation.  Galton,  a  close  associate  of  Darwin,  de- 
serves to  be  mentioned  alongside  of  Wundt  as  one  of  the 
founders  of  modem  psychology.  He  studied  individual 
differences  in  imagery  and  other  mental  traits,  collected 
data  on  the  heredity  of  mental  abilities,  and  sought  to 
discover  how  far  heredity  and  how  far  environment  are 
responsible  for  the  individual's  peculiar  character  and 


12  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

mentality.  He  introduced  important  methods  for  the 
study  of  variation  and  the  relationships  of  traits.  In 
this  he  has  been  followed  by  Karl  Pearson  and  many 
others.  For  the  purpose  of  studying  mental  differences, 
Gal  ton  introduced  the  conception  of  mental  tests,  thus 
establishing  connections  between  experimental  psychol- 
ogy and  the  biological  interest.  In  this  line  he  was  im- 
mediately followed  by  Cattell,  and  later  by  a  host  of 
psychologists,  as  the  fruitfulness  of  this  line  of  study 
has  become  evident.  Looking  over  the  whole  field  of 
psychological  investigation  at  the  present  time,  one  gets 
the  impression  that,  while  the  dominant  method  of 
observation  has  been  derived,  as  already  shown,  from 
physiology,  a  large  share  of  the  interests  involved  are 
to  be  traced  back  to  biology  and  particularly  the  study 
of  evolution. 

Somewhat  akin  to  the  biological  source  of  interest  is 
the  anthropological,  both  being  concerned  with  mental 
development  in  the  race.  It  was  apparently  the  greatly 
increased  knowledge  of  languages,  and  the  discovery  of 
close  relationships  between  Hindu  and  European  lan- 
guages, that  gave  the  start  to  this  line  of  psychological 
study.  Since  language,  it  was  said,  is  the  expression  of 
thought,  the  history  of  human  thought  could  be  traced 
in  terms  of  the  history  of  language  and  by  the  methods 
of  comparative  philology.  About  the  middle  of  the  last 
century,  efforts  were  made  by  Geiger,  Max  Mliller, 
Gladstone,  and  others,  to  write  chapters  in  the  history 
of  the  human  mind  on  the  basis  of  philology  and  com- 
parative mythology.  In  the  sixties,  there  was  even 
published  for  several  years  in  Germany  a  journal  of 
'folk  psychology',  perhaps  the  first  scientific  journal  to 


MODERN  MOVEMENT  IN  PSYCHOLOGY  13 

bear  the  name  of  psychology.  The  methods  and  pre- 
suppositions of  the  older  folk  psychologists  have  not 
stood  the  test  of  time;  for  language,  it  is  now  recognized, 
is  by  no  means  a  clear  and  unequivocal  expression  of 
thought  and  consciousness,  and  the  easy  transmission 
of  a  language  from  one  race  to  another  makes  it  im- 
possible to  trace  racial  by  linguistic  history.  Yet  the 
contribution  of  folk  psychology  to  the  general  modem 
movement  cannot  be  ignored.  It  resembles  the  other 
factors  in  the  total  movement  at  least  in  this,  that  it 
makes  its  start  from  empirically  determined  facts.  It 
embraces  a  great  mass  of  data,  which,  when  good 
methods  are  devised  for  their  utilization,  can  hardly  fail 
to  enrich  very  greatly  the  science  of  psychology. 

Yet  another  important  contribution  to  the  modem 
movement  remains  to  be  mentioned.  The  origin  of 
abnormal  or  pathological  psychology  is  quite  inde- 
pendent of  all  the  influences  that  have  already  been 
mentioned;  and  we  have  here  another  stream  of  in- 
fluence coming  from  medicine. 

Prior  to  1791,  very  little  scientific  interest  had  been 
aroused  by  the  insane.  Neglected  or  confined  as  dan- 
gerous, they  were  in  a  deplorable  condition.  In  this 
year,  Pinel  made  the  first  great  step  in  reform  at  the 
Salpetriere  in  Paris,  by  striking  the  chains  from  the 
inmates,  as  depicted  in  a  famous  painting.  In  other 
words,  he  diminished  the  amount  of  restraint,  and 
sought  for  a  more  humane  and  rational  treatment,  being 
guided  by  a  conception  of  the  insane  as  sick  people  who 
needed  medical  attention  rather  than  punishment. 
Thus  was  bom  a  new  specialty  in  medicine,  that  of 
psychiatry  or  the  treatment  of  mental  disorders.    The 


14  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

reform  spread  quickly  to  other  countries,  and  gained 
force  from  decade  to  decade,  though  even  today  its 
work  is  not  complete,  since  there  are  localities,  and  some 
even  in  our  own  country,  where  the  treatment  of  the 
insane  has  not  advanced  much  beyond  the  eighteenth 
century  standard.  From  the  psychological  point  of 
view,  the  important  thing  is  that,  along  with  the  new 
treatment,  there  went  a  new  attention  to  the  phenomena 
of  insanity,  a  recognition  of  different  types,  a  tracing  of 
the  course  of  the  disorder,  and  search  for  its  origin. 
Along  in  the  middle  of  the  century,  we  find  books 
written  by  Moreau  de  Tours  and  by  Maudsley  that 
are  essentially  books  on  abnormal  psychology;  and 
attention  to  this  side  of  the  matter  has  greatly  increased 
of  late.  Within  the  last  few  decades,  also,  this  move- 
ment has  established  connections  with  experimental 
psychology,  till  we  find  psychologists  attached  to  the 
staff  of  some  of  the  progressive  hospitals  for  the  insane. 
Near  the  year  1800,  again,  we  find  the  first  trace  of 
scientific  interest  in  the  mentally  defective,  who  had 
previously  been  almost  wholly  neglected  by  society. 
Itard  conceived  that  an  idiot  might  be  taught  if  only 
the  methods  of  teaching  were  well  chosen ;  and  though 
his  attempt  was  not  very  successful,  it  aroused  interest 
and  led  the  way  to  further  study  at  the  hands  of  physi- 
cians. Seguin,  somewhat  after  the  middle  of  the  cen- 
tury, made  a  serious  and  rather  successful  effort  to 
devise  methods  for  teaching  the  mentally  defective  such 
things  as  they  are  capable  of  learning.  As  the  result  of 
such  work,  the  treatment  of  this  class  by  society  has 
become  much  more  humane  and  intelligent,  though 
much  remains  to  be  done  before  our  manner  of  dealing 


MODERN  MOVEMENT  IN  PSYCHOLOGY  15 

with  the  defective  shall  reach  the  level  of  our  treatment 
of  the  insane.  Two  points  in  the  recent  history  of  the 
matter  are  of  special  interest  to  us  here.  When  Binet 
devised  his  very  useful  set  of  tests  for  the  determination 
of  the  level  of  intelligence  and  the  diagnosis  of  mental 
defect,  he,  once  more,  established  connections  between 
the  experimental  and  the  pathological  streams  in  the 
modem  psychological  movement.  And  the  recent 
development  of  interest  in  eugenics,  primarily  a  bio- 
logical problem,  but  spreading  to  psychology  and  espe- 
cially to  the  question  of  mental  defect  and  its  heredity, 
has  brought  three  streams  together  in  what  bids  fair  to 
be  a  very  important  activity. 

The  history  of  hypnotism,  as  of  psychotherapy  gener- 
ally, is  of  interest  in  relation  to  the  development  of 
modem  psychology.  Without  considering  the  various 
practices  which,  under  many  names  in  many  peoples, 
are  essentially  the  same  as  hypnotism,  we  may  begin 
with  the  'animal  magnetism'  of  Mesmer.  This 
Viennese  physician,  a  man  not  without  scientific  bent, 
though  the  mystical  element  was  more  pronounced  in 
his  make-up,  put  forward  about  1770  the  conception 
(in  part  an  old  conception)  that  a  magnetic  influence 
passing  from  one  person  to  another  was  capable  of  pro- 
ducing curative  effects.  He  found  this  magnetism 
specially  strong  in  himself,  and  claimed  to  heal  by  its 
means.  Migrating  to  Paris  in  1778,  he  aroused  great 
excitement  by  his  seances,  staged  much  like  those  of  a 
magician,  in  which  he  produced  trances  and  convulsions 
in  some  of  his  more  susceptible  subjects,  and  apparently 
cured  some  ailments  which  would  now  be  classed  as 
nervous,    A  royal  commission,  including  Lavoisier  and 


l6  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

Benjamin  Franklin,  investigated  him,  and  pronounced 
against  his  doctrine  of  animal  magnetism,  while  leaving 
the  question  of  the  reality  of  his  cures  unsettled.  The 
practice  of  mesmerism  went  on  without  scientific  recog- 
nition, till  about  1830,  when  a  second  commission,  ap- 
pointed this  time  by  the  Paris  Academy  of  Medicine, 
investigated  it  and  reported  that  some  of  the  cures  were 
genuine,  not  pronouncing  on  the  theory  of  animal  mag- 
netism. Meanwhile,  some  of  the  outstanding  facts  of 
the  matter,  the  trance  state,  with  its  high  suggestibility 
and  frequent  absence  of  memory  for  it  afterwards,  had 
been  definitely  observed.  A  little  later.  Braid,  an  Eng- 
lish surgeon,  gave  the  first  really  scientific  account  of  the 
condition  of  hypnosis,  with  a  more  rational  interpreta- 
tion than  that  of  animal  magnetism.  From  this  time 
on,  some  use  of  hypnotism  was  made  by  nerve  special- 
ists; but  it  was  not  till  the  time  of  Charcot  and  Liebault, 
in  the  seventies,  that  the  matter  was  thoroughly 
threshed  out  and  its  psychological  interest  emphasized. 
Quite  a  school  of  younger  men,  following  Charcot,  en- 
deavored to  obtain  psychological  information  by  the 
use  of  hypnosis  as  a  method  of  investigation. 

Charcot's  name  is  prominent  also  in  the  history  of  the 
neuroses,  hysteria  especially;  and  his  pupils,  among 
whom  Janet  and  Freud  are  noteworthy,  have  made  very 
serious  attempts  to  fathom  the  psychology  of  these 
baffling  conditions  and  derive  thence  information  for 
normal  psychology  as  well;  since  it  has  been  felt  that 
these  abnormal  mental  conditions  simply  show  normal 
functions  acting  in  an  exaggerated  and  unbalanced  way. 

Of  recent  years,  psychology  has  been  undergoing  a 
new  influence.    While  the  influences  already  mentioned 


MODERN  MOVEMENT  IN  PSYCHOLOGY  17 

have  come  from  the  older  sciences,  these  recent  influ- 
ences have  come  from  the  practical  field,  and  consist  of 
demands  upon  psychology  to  rise  to  its  opportunities 
for  practical  application.  The  field  in  which  psychology 
has  been  longest  and  most  extensively  applied  is  educa- 
tion. From  a  condition  in  which  it  simply  attempted  to 
make  use  of  the  existing  conclusions  of  general  psychol- 
ogy, educational  psychology  is  developing  into  a  condi- 
tion in  which  it  makes  its  own  experiments  to  solve  its 
own  problems,  and  thus  incidentally  contributes  to  the 
general  store  of  psychological  knowledge  instead  of 
simply  drawing  upon  it.  Industrial  psychology,  busi- 
ness psychology,  legal  and  forensic  psychology  have  not 
yet  reached  the  stage  of  independent  development,  but, 
in  view  of  the  strong  demands  they  are  making  on  the 
psychologist,  it  is  likely  that  there  will  soon  be  special- 
ists in  these  branches  and  that  their  work  will  contribute 
much  of  general  psychological  interest;  and  thus  the 
currents  that  go  to  make  up  the  psychological  stream 
will  in  the  future  be  even  more  numerous  and  varied 
than  they  are  today. 

With  so  many  streams  entering  into  it,  modem  psy- 
chology is  itself  necessarily  a  complex  afi'air.  In  spite 
of  its  complexity,  however,  there  is  a  strong  tendency 
for  the  different  streams  to  come  together.  They  tend 
to  come  together  in  the  matter  of  method,  in  that  the 
method  of  experiment,  itself  diversified  to  meet  the 
various  demands  made  on  it,  is  becoming  more  and  more 
widely  adopted.  To  a  considerable  degree,  also,  the 
diverse  interests  of  psychology  show  a  tendency  to  unite 
in  a  general  adoption  of  the  genetic  problem  as  the  com- 
mon aim  of  all  branches  of  investigation.    The  problems 


l8  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

of  origin  and  development,  obviously  the  main  interest 
in  child  psychology  and  the  study  of  mental  heredity, 
as  well  as  in  the  manifold  work  on  the  process  of  learn- 
ing, have  also  come  to  be  the  chief  interest  in  pathologi- 
cal psychology.  We  wish  not  only  to  examine  the  mo- 
mentary state  of  a  deluded  individual  and  discover 
whether  he  really  reasons  correctly  from  false  premises, 
but  we  wish  to  go  behind  the  moment  and  discover  how 
he  came  to  accept  those  false  premises  and  allow  them  to 
become  so  firmly  fixed  within  him.  Even  within  the 
traditional  field  of  experimental  psychology,  there  is  an 
increasing  tendency  to  examine  a  performance  in  its 
development  rather  than  simply  in  its  perfected  form. 
Perhaps  no  one  has  better  expressed  in  his  writings 
the  full  scope  and  tendency  of  modem  psychology  than 
the  late  William  James.  He  took  as  his  background  the 
older  mental  philosophy,  especially  of  the  English  asso- 
ciationist  school,  being  however  keenly  aware  of  its 
shortcomings  and  of  certain  necessary  complements  to 
be  found  in  the  mental  philosophy  of  the  Germans. 
Coming  into  psychology  from  the  physiological  labo- 
ratory, he  retained  the  physiological  point  of  view,  was 
entirely  hospitable  to  the  new  experimental  psychology, 
and  very  early  conducted  experiments  of  his  own.  He 
was  not,  indeed,  especially  impressed  by  much  of  the 
earlier  experimental  work  of  Fechner  and  of  Wundt 
and  his  pupils,  which  seemed  to  him  rather  formal  and 
pedantic  and  lacking  in  real  psychological  insight;  and 
he  used  to  speak  rather  depreciatingly  of  'brass  instru- 
ment psychology'.  Yet  he  gave  it  a  hearing  and  ex- 
tracted what  benefit  he  could  from  it.  His  interest  in 
the  problems  of  genetics  is  seen  in  his  specially  excellent 


MODERN  MOVEMENT  IN  PSYCHOLOGY  19 

chapters  on  instinct  and  habit,  and  in  the  whole  tenor 
of  his  work.  With  the  French  school  of  abnormal  psy- 
chology he  was  keenly  sympathetic,  and  he  was  able  to 
find  much  of  value  in  their  works.  All  in  all,  he  was 
evidently  a  good  internationalist  in  his  science,  as  in- 
deed every  good  psychologist  must  be.  Better  than  any 
other  book,  his  great  work  on  the  Principles  of  Psy- 
chology can  be  taken  as  at  once  a  summing  up  of  the 
older  psychology  and  an  introduction  to  the  modem 
point  of  view. 


II 

THE  PROBLEMS  AND  METHODS  OF 
PSYCHOLOGY 

One  curious  fact  about  present-day  psychology  is  that 
it  is  uncertain,  or  seems  so,  as  to  its  proper  Hne  of  study. 
You  will  find  in  current  discussions  a  great  deal  of  dis- 
agreement as  to  the  correct  aim  and  definition  of  the 
science,  and  as  to  the  method  of  investigation  that  it 
ought  to  employ.  The  question  of  method  is  bound  up 
with  the  question  of  aim.  Some  will  tell  you  that  the 
only  proper  aim  of  psychology  is  to  reach  a  scientific 
analysis  and  description  of  consciousness,  and  that  the 
method  to  be  employed,  accordingly,  must  be  self- 
observation  or  introspection ;  while  others  will  deny  that 
consciousness  can  be  studied  scientifically  or  that  intro- 
spection is  a  valid  method  of  study,  and  will  submit, 
in  their  turn,  that  the  aim  of  psychology  should  be  to 
describe  human  behavior,  and  its  method  the  objective 
examination  of  behavior.  To  an  outsider  this  unsettled 
state  of  affairs  naturally  appears  as  a  sign  of  inherent 
weakness,  and  it  is  so  regarded  by  some  apprehensive 
psychologists.  Probably  it  must  be  admitted  to  be  a 
sign  of  immaturity ;  but  it  is  a  less  serious  symptom  than 
at  first  appears.  Psychologists  are  not  marking  time 
while  these  theoretical  questions  are  discussed ;  but  each 
is  attacking  the  problem  that  appeals  to  him  by  the 
method  adapted  to  that  problem.  After  all,  though  at- 
tempts to  define  the  scope  of  a  science  are  not  without 


PROBLEMS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  21 

value,  they  are  not  fundamental.  A  science  does  not 
take  its  start  from  a  definition,  as  if  its  task  were  as- 
signed to  it  by  some  higher  authority,  but  it  proceeds 
from  problem  to  problem,  often  taking  unexpected 
turns  as  the  knowledge  gained  opens  vistas  of  knowledge 
still  to  be  sought.  The  best  definition  of  a  science,  at 
any  time,  would  be  derived  by  induction  from  the  work 
already  accomplished  in  it,  together  with  the  problems 
offering  a  fair  prospect  of  solution.  Obtained  in  this 
way,  the  definition  of  current  psychology  would  make 
mention  of  both  consciousness  and  behavior,  since  both 
are  being  fruitfully  and  hopefully  studied. 

Let  us  see  what  the  study  of  consciousness  comes  to  in 
practice.  It  is  clear  that  the  field  of  consciousness  in- 
cludes not  only  emotions  and  ideas,  but  also  sense  ex- 
perience, and,  in  fact,  most  progress  has  been  made  in 
the  study  of  sensory  experience,  because  of  the  fact  that 
it  can  be  aroused  at  will  by  appropriate  physical  stimuli, 
and  thus  readily  rnade  the  object  of  experimental  study. 
The  first  step  in  a  description  of  sensation  has  been 
classification,  the  grouping  of  the  various  sensory  ex- 
periences according  to  their  likenesses  and  differences. 
Thus,  within  the  domain  of  light  sensations,  we  can 
distinguish  a  chromatic  or  color  group  from  the  colorless 
black- white-gray  group,  and  within  the  domain  of 
sound  we  distinguish  tones  and  noises.  Exploration  of 
the  skin  reveals  pressure,  warmth,  cold,  and  pain  sensa- 
tions ;  and  exploration  of  the  sense  of  smell  enables  us  to 
distinguish,  rather  roughly  perhaps,  eight  or  ten  classes 
of  odors. 

A  second  step  in  the  description  of  sensations  can  be 
taken  in  some  cases  only;  it  consists  in  the  arrangement 


22  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

of  a  group  of  sensations  in  a  definite  order  according  to 
their  degrees  of  resemblance.  The  tones  can  be  ar- 
ranged in  order  from  high  to  low,  the  colors  in  order  from 
red,  through  orange,  yellow,  greenish  yellow,  green, 
bluish  green,  blue,  violet,  and  purple,  back  to  red  again. 
Any  class  of  sensations  can  be  arranged  in  the  order  of 
their  intensity,  as  colors  from  bright  to  dark,  tones  from 
loud  to  soft,  odors  from  strong  to  faint.  Evidently  this 
arrangement  in  order,  where  it  can  be  carried  out,  is 
much  more  satisfactory  as  a  description  than  the  mere 
separation  into  disconnected  classes. 

A  third  step  in  the  description  of  sense  experience  is 
analysis,  of  which  a  good  example  is  afforded  by  the 
tastes.  We  commonly  assign  a  distinct  taste  to  almost 
every  article  of  food,  but  the  simple  experiment  of  hold- 
ing the  nose  while  tasting  proves  that  most  of  these 
characteristic  flavors  are  really  additions  to  taste  proper 
contributed  by  the  sense  of  smell.  Coffee  and  a  solution 
of  quinine,  apple  pulp  and  onion  pulp,  cannot  be  told 
apart  when  the  nose  is  held,  their  differences  being 
really  in  odor  and  not  in  taste  proper.  Such  flavors  are 
therefore  compounds.  But  sweet,  sour,  bitter,  and  salty 
are  true  tastes,  not  abolished  by  excluding  the  sense  of 
smell;  and,  moreover,  no  effort  to  analyze  them  has 
been  successful,  so  that  they  are  accepted  as  the  ele- 
mentary tastes.  Other  similar  analyses  have  been  suc- 
cessfully made,  especially  in  the  realm  of  tones.  De- 
scriptive psychology  aims  to  discover  all  the  elementary 
sensations  and  to  show  which  of  them  enter  into  each 
compound  of  sensations;  in  other  words,  it  seeks  to  ac- 
complish something  similar  to  the  work  of  analytical 
chemistry. 


PROBLEMS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  23 

A  fourth  step  in  the  descriptive  psychology  of  sensa- 
tion is  to  examine  the  modes  of  combination  of  the 
elements.  Two  such  modes  may  perhaps  be  recognized, 
the  blends  and  the  patterns.  When  two  or  more  sensa- 
tions blend,  the  compound  is  a  sensation  of  the  same 
general  sort  as  the  elements,  and  appears,  indeed,  at 
first  inspection  to  be  an  element,  though  properly 
directed  attention  may  be  able  to  pick  out  of  it  its  con- 
stituent parts.  The  taste  of  lemonade  is  a  blend  of 
sweet,  sour,  lemon  odor  and  cold ;  but  to  the  one  who  is 
drinking,  it  is  usually  just  the  taste  of  lemonade,  no 
more  and  no  less.  A  pattern  is  a  combination  in  which 
the  constituents  retain  their  individuality,  or  much  of 
it,  because  they  exist  side  by  side  in  space,  or  one  after 
the  other  in  time ;  while,  nevertheless,  the  combination 
has  a  certain  unity,  a  specific  character  of  its  own,  not  of 
the  same  general  sort  as  that  of  its  constituents.  A 
number  of  bits  of  color  side  by  side  give  a  pattern ;  and 
the  pattern  has  a  specific  character;  but  we  should  not 
think  of  calling  the  pattern  itself  a  color,  as  we  call  the 
blend  of  tastes  a  taste.  A  melody  is  a  pattern;  and  a 
still  better  example  is  a  heard  word,  composed  of  vowel 
and  consonantal  sounds  in  a  certain  order,  but  heard  as 
a  unit. 

As  can  be  seen  from  the  foregoing  sketch  of  the  work 
accomplished  in  describing  sensory  experience,  consider- 
able progress  has  been  made  in  this  particular  problem. 
A  similar  problem  is  the  description  of  the  conscious 
processes  of  memory,  imagination,  thinking,  emotion, 
etc.,  but  here  the  undertaking  has  been  found  much 
more  difficult,  partly  because  individuals  differ  much 
more  here  than  in  sensation,  and  partly  because  the 


24  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

processes  cannot  be  aroused  with  the  same  certainty 
when  desired  and  thus  are  not  so  subject  to  experimental 
control.  Good  work  has  been  done  on  mental  imagery, 
and  suggestive  beginnings  have  been  made  in  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  conscious  process  of  thinking;  but,  on  the 
whole,  progress  has  been  relatively  slow,  and  there  is 
much  disagreement  as  to  the  proper  interpretation  of  the 
results  thus  far  obtained. 

Casting  our  eye  over  the  results  and  prospects  of 
psychology  considered  as  a  study  of  consciousness,  the 
doubt  arises  whether  this  is,  after  all,  the  psychology 
that  we  came  out  to  see.  It  is  impossible,  indeed,  that 
a  description  of  consciousness,  however  perfect,  should 
fully  satisfy  the  psychological  interest  and  curiosity. 
It  cannot  pretend  to  tell  us  all  we  wish  to  know  of  men- 
tal life  and  perfoi^mance.  Its  most  obvious  deficiency 
lies  in  the  fact  that  mental  processes  are  not  entirely 
conscious,  so  that  consciousness  gives  but  a  fragmentary 
picture  of  the  real  course  of  events  in  perceiving,  re- 
membering, thinking,  or  acting.  A  few  instances  will 
make  this  plain.  An  act,  at  first  unfamiliar  and  exe- 
cuted with  consciousness  of  its  several  parts,  becomes 
with  repetition  fluent  and  automatic,  and  attended  by 
little  consciousness.  What  shall  we  do  in  such  a  case? 
Shall  we  let  the  psychologist  study  the  doing  of  the 
unfamiliar  act,  but  turn  over  the  study  of  the  well- 
trained  act  to  some  other  science,  as  physiology?  This 
would  be  an  ill-conceived  division  of  labor,  since  it 
would  prevent  the  genesis  of  the  well-trained  act  from 
being  followed  and  understood.  Again;  any  complex 
mental  act,  though  partly  in  clear  consciousness,  is  in 
part  only  dimly  and  in  part  not  at  all  conscious;  yet 


PROBLEMS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  25 

certainly  the  act  should  be  studied  as  a  whole.  To  con- 
fine our  attention  to  consciousness  would  be  like  describ- 
ing the  shifting  views  of  the  kaleidoscope,  without  any 
consideration  of  the  action  of  the  machine.  Though 
entertaining,  it  would  be,  on  the  whole,  rather  trifling. 
Another  difificulty  with  psychology  conceived  as  the 
science  of  consciousness  has  been  felt  most  keenly  by 
the  students  of  animal  psychology.  A  science  should  be 
based  on  as  direct  observations  as  possible,  while  the 
animal  psychologist  was  in  the  unsatisfactory  position 
of  being  entirely  unable  to  observe  the  animal  conscious- 
ness directly.  This  would  not  be  so  bad  if  he  had  the 
means  of  inferring  the  consciousness  of  the  animal  with 
any  certainty  from  its  actions;  but  such  inferences  are 
based  wholly  on  analogy  and  not  on  logically  sound 
premises.  We  observe  the  animal  behaving  in  a  certain 
manner,  and  reason  that  if  we  behaved  in  such  a  way  in 
similar  circumstances,  our  conscious  experience  would 
be  thus  and  so;  and  therefore  the  animal's  consciousness 
must  be  thus  and  so.  But  this  is  no  sure  inference,  since 
the  major  premise  that  it  requires,  to  the  efifect  that 
such  an  act  is  always  attended  by  such  consciousness, 
could  not  be  known  to  be  true  except  by  observation 
of  the  consciousness  of  animals  attending  their  acts. 
Aside  from  this  logical  difificulty,  there  is  in  detail  very 
great  chance  of  error  when  animal  behavior  is  inter- 
preted anthropomorphically.  The  animal  psychologist 
is  confronted  by  a  dilemma:  if  he  would  produce  psy- 
chology, he  is  told  that  he  must  describe  the  conscious- 
ness of  animals ;  but  if  he  attempts  to  do  so,  he  ceases  to 
be  scientific.  Meanwhile,  he  is  perfectly  aware  within 
himself  that  he  is  making  scientific  observations  on  the 


26  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

actions  of  animals,  and  that  the  actions  he  is  studying 
are  in  the  same  general  class  as  the  mental  accomplish- 
ments of  men,  though  less  elaborate. 

Let  us  examine  for  a  few  moments  the  character  of 
the  work  done  by  the  animal  psychologists.  Of  recent 
years  it  is  almost  wholly  carried  on  by  experimental 
methods. 

One  line  of  study  has  been  concerned  with  the  in- 
stinctive or  native  powers  of  different  animals.  Spald- 
ing sought  to  discover  whether  flight  was  instinctive  in 
birds,  by  taking  the  young,  just  hatched,  and  confining 
them  in  little  boxes  too  narrow  to  allow  them  to  stretch 
their  wings  and  so  constructed  that  the  little  bird  could 
not  see  out  and  possibly  learn  from  the  sight  of  older 
birds  flying.  He  kept  the  birds  in  good  condition  in 
these  boxes  till  the  age  at  which  the  young  of  that  species 
normally  begin  to  fly,  and,  on  then  releasing  them, 
found  that  they  flew  promptly  and  well,  steering  and 
avoiding  obstacles  as  cleverly  as  could  be  desired. 
Evidently,  flight  was  not  learned  but  instinctive. 

Thomdike  placed  a  newly  hatched  chick  on  a  plat- 
form at  varying  distances  from  the  ground,  and  found 
the  chick  to  hop  down  without  hesitation  when  the 
elevation  was  small,  with  hesitation  and  spreading  of 
the  wings  when  the  elevation  was  medium,  and  not  at 
all  when  it  was  great,  thus  showing  an  innate  sense  of 
distance,  a  reaction  to  the  third  dimension. 

Scott  brought  up  young  Baltimore  orioles  without 
giving  them  any  opportunity  of  hearing  the  song  of 
older  birds  of  their  kind,  and  found  that  the  young  de- 
veloped songs  of  their  own,  not  identical  with  those 
common  to  the  species;  he  concluded,  therefore,  that 


PROBLEMS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  27 

the  particular  song  of  the  species  was  not  determined  by 
innate  tendencies,  but  was  learned  by  the  young  from 
the  older  birds,  and  handed  down  from  generation 
to  generation. 

Another  line  of  study  in  animal  psychology  has  been 
concerned  with  the  intelligence,  or  ability  to  learn,  of 
various  animals.  A  typical  instance  is  afforded  by 
Thomdike's  puzzle-box  experiment  on  cats  and  dogs. 
A  hungry  cat  was  placed  in  a  box  or  cage,  through  the 
slats  of  which  it  could  see  or  smell  a  bit  of  food  placed 
outside.  The  door  of  the  cage  could  be  opened  from 
inside  by  turning  a  button  or  operating  some  other 
simple  catch.  The  cat  immediately  began  vigorous 
efforts  to  get  out  to  the  food.  It  tried  to  squeeze  be- 
tween the  slats,  bit  or  clawed  at  anything  loose,  and, 
in  the  course  of  these  varied  attempts,  hit  upon  the 
catch,  opened  the  door  and  got  its  food.  On  a  fresh 
trial,  the  cat  went  through  the  same  style  of  perform- 
ance; but  on  repeated  trials  its  time  gradually  decreased 
by  elimination  of  more  and  more  of  the  useless  move- 
ments, till  finally  it  reacted  to  the  situation  by  going 
straight  to  the  catch  and  opening  the  door;  and  in  fur- 
ther trials  it  continued  to  react  in  this  way,  showing 
that  it  had  learned  the  trick.  Something  of  its  manner 
of  learning  it  could  be  inferred  from  its  behavior.  It 
gave  no  sign  of  any  internal  process  of  working  the 
thing  out,  for  it  was  in  constant  motion,  passing  im- 
petuously from  one  feature  of  the  cage  to  another  that 
aroused  its  tendencies  to  react.  Moreover,  the  process 
of  learning  was  gradual,  as  shown  by  the  times  of  suc- 
cessive trials,  and  seemed  to  consist  in  the  gradual  weak- 
ening and  elimination  of  those  tendencies  to  react  that 


28  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

resulted  in  failure  and  the  gradual  strengthening  of  those 
tendencies  that  resulted  in  success,  without  any  sudden 
transition  from  blind  'trial  and  error'  to  correct  orienta- 
tion. The  transition  came,  but  not  all  at  once,  as  hap- 
pens when  a  human  being  suddenly  sees  into  the  problem. 

Similar  experiments  with  puzzle-boxes,  and  also  with 
mazes,  or  paths  to  be  learned,  have  been  tried  on  many 
species  of  animals,  with  the  object  of  discovering 
whether  all  animals  have  some  power  of  learning,  the 
gpeed  of  learning  and  the  difficulty  of  the  problem  that 
can  be  mastered  by  each  species,  the  influence  of  age  on 
quickness  of  learning,  the  best  manner  of  teaching  the 
animal,  whether  imitation  provides  a  means  of  learning 
additional  to  trial  and  error,  how  long  what  has  been 
learned  is  retained,  and  what  parts  of  the  brain  are 
concerned  in  the  performance  of  learned  acts. 

Another  line  of  work  is  concerned  with  the  senses  and 
sense  discrimination  of  animals.  Experiments  on  this 
question  are  also  usually  experiments  in  learning,  the 
question  reducing  itself  to  this,  whether  the  animal  can 
learn,  for  example,  to  react  differently  to  two  colors. 
Suppose  a  cat  is  to  be  tested  as  to  its  power  of  distin- 
guishing blue  from  gray.  It  is  placed  before  two  doors, 
one  bearing  a  blue  spot  and  the  other  a  gray.  When  it 
opens  the  blue  door  it  finds  food,  but  the  gray  door 
yields  it  nothing  or  perhaps  even  punishment  of  some 
sort.  The  blue  and  gray  signs  are  frequently  inter- 
changed, so  that  the  cat  cannot  be  guided  by  position. 
In  a  series  of  trials,  however,  the  cat  probably  learns  to 
choose  the  door  with  the  blue  sign  quite  regularly, 
showing  that  it  can  discriminate  in  reaction  between  the 
two  stimuli  used.    But  what  it  is  reacting  to  may  be  a 


PROBLEMS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  29 

difference  of  brightness  rather  than  of  color.  To  test 
this  question,  once  the  reaction  to  the  blue  is  well  estab- 
lished, the  gray  is  gradually  made  brighter  or  darker; 
and  it  is  found,  as  a  matter  of  fact  (by  Cole),  that  a  gray 
can  be  found  of  such  brightness  that  the  cat  no  longer 
reacts  regularly  to  the  blue,  but  goes  to  either  the  blue 
or  the  gray  door  by  chance.  The  probability  is,  from 
work  of  this  kind,  that  cats  and  dogs  and  a  large  share 
of  animals  do  not  have  the  power  of  color  discrimina- 
tion, i.e.,  the  power  of  reacting  differently  to  light  ac- 
cording to  its  wave  length.  The  hen,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  keenly  sensitive  to  differences  of  wave  length,  and 
this  is  very  likely  true  of  birds  in  general.  The  monkeys 
also  seem  to  discriminate  colors. 

It  is  clear  that  the  observations  of  the  animal  psychol- 
ogist are  objective,  and  that  his  results  are  directly 
facts  in  the  behavior  of  the  animals,  in  their  reaction 
to  stimuli.  Also,  it  is  plain  that  generalizations  in 
terms  of  behavior  can  be  drawn  from  such  observations, 
and  have  been  drawn.  Consequently  animal  psychol- 
ogy can  fairly  claim  to  be  scientific.  Can  it  claim  to  be 
psychology?  Well,  it  is  engaged  in  the  study  of  in- 
stinct, learning,  discrimination,  matters  that  the  student 
of  the  human  mind  must  also  consider.  Only,  it  is  not 
engaged  in  the  study  of  consciousness.  It  was  to  be 
expected,  in  this  state  of  affairs,  that  the  animal  psy- 
chologist, on  turning  his  attention  back  to  human  or 
general  psychology,  should  query  whether  after  all  the 
real  goal  of  the  science  was  not  the  study  of  behavior, 
human  as  well  as  animal.    The  most  radical  of  them^  are 

1  As  Watson  in  Behavior;  An  Introduction  to  Comparative  Psychology, 
New  York,  19 14. 


30  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

for  excluding  altogether  the  study  of  consciousness, 
and,  as  they  conceive  it,  throwing  overboard  the  whole, 
or  nearly  the  whole,  of  the  human  psychology  thus  far 
achieved,  with  its  concepts  and  terminology,  and  mak- 
ing a  fresh  start.  They  would  take  animal  psychology 
as  the  model,  the  objective  method  as  the  exclusive 
means  of  observation,  and  make  the  scientific  descrip- 
tion of  reactions  to  stimuli  the  goal  of  all  psychology. 

This  sounds  revolutionary,  but  is  really  less  revolu- 
tionary than  it  sounds.  Psychology  has  not  by  any 
means  waited  till  the  present  time  before  beginning 
studies  of  human  behavior,  nor  have  the  consciousness 
psychologists  ever  had  things  all  their  own  way.  Sum- 
ming up  in  1904  the  convictions  that  had  guided  him 
for  two  decades  of  investigation  and  teaching,  Cattell 
expressed  himself^  as  follows: 

"I  am  not  convinced  that  psychology  should  be 
limited  to  the  study  of  consciousness  as  such  .... 
There  is  no  conflict  between  introspective  analysis  and 
objective  experiment — on  the  contrary,  they  should 
and  do  continually  cooperate.  But  the  rather  wide- 
spread notion  that  there  is  no  psychology  apart  from 
introspection  is  refuted  by  the  brute  argument  of  ac- 
complished fact.  It  seems  to  me  that  most  of  the  re- 
search work  that  has  been  done  by  me  or  in  my  labor- 
atory is  nearly  as  independent  of  introspection  as  work 
in  physics  or  zoology." 

Though  few  had  given  expression  to  this  view  of 
psychology  when  attempting  to  define  it,  a  large  share 

1  At  the  International  Congress  of  Arts  and  Sciences  in  St.  Louis, 
printed  in  the  Report  of  the  Congress,  and  in  the  Popular  Science 
Monthly  for  December,  1904. 


PROBLEMS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  31 

of  all  the  experimental  work  done  from  the  time  of 
Fechner  down  is  virtually  work  on  human  behavior, 
and  only  incidentally,  if  at  all,  on  consciousness.  A  very 
typical  form  of  experiment  has  been  the  assignment  of  a 
task  and  the  measurement  of  the  success  with  which  the 
task  was  performed;  with  variation  of  the  conditions 
and  observation  of  the  resulting  change  in  the  perform- 
ance of  the  task.  Fechner's  own  work  in  the  perception 
of  small  differences  was  of  this  sort,  though  he  chose  to 
interpret  it  in  a  somewhat  strained  manner;  and  the 
same  may  be  said  of  a  large  share  of  the  subsequent 
work  on  psychophysics.  Reaction  time  work  is  of  this 
sort,  and  has  frequently  been  criticised  by  the  more  en- 
thusiastic introspectionists  on  the  ground  that  it  has 
failed  to  give  a  description  of  consciousness.  The  same 
can  be  said,  emphatically,  of  most  of  the  great  mass  of 
work  on  memory  and  practice.  Finally,  studies  of 
individual  differences,  heredity,  mental  development 
and  abnormal  conditions  have,  with  few  exceptions, 
been  carried  out  by  objective  methods  and  have  con- 
sequently yielded  results  on  behavior  rather  than  on 
consciousness.  It  is  true  that  introspection  has  some- 
times, and  of  late  years  to  an  increasing  degree,  been 
combined  with  the  objective  determinations;  and  it  is 
also  true  that  the  results  of  the  objective  determina- 
tions have  often  been  stated  in  terms  of  conscious  ex- 
periences, rather  than  purely  in  terms  of  the  objective 
conditions  and  the  motor  reaction ;  but  the  task  would 
not  be  difficult  to  clear  away  all  this  introspective  and 
interpretative  material,  and  write  a  psychology,  on  the 
basis  of  results  already  obtained,  that  should  be  strictly 


32  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

a  science  of  behavior.  And  it  would  not  be  so  meager  a 
body  of  knowledge,  either. 

The  question  remains  whether  it  would  be  desirable 
to  do  this — whether  the  extreme  behaviorists  are  on 
the  right  track  in  demanding  that  all  introspection  and 
all  attempt  to  describe  conscious  processes  should  be 
swept  away.  Their  objection  is  primarily  directed 
against  the  introspective  method,  which  they  regard  as 
untrustworthy.  It  may  be  worth  our  while,  before 
attempting  to  answer  the  question,  to  examine  this 
form  of  observation  for  a  few  moments. 

Introspection  may  be  defined  as  the  direct  observa- 
tion by  an  individual  of  his  own  mental  processes  or  of 
the  impressions  made  upon  him  by  external  things.  It 
is  a  form  of  observation  that  only  the  individual  him- 
self can  make.  In  practice,  there  are  two  quite  different 
forms  of  introspection.  The  simpler  case  is  that  in 
which  the  subject  is  asked  to  observe  and  report  the 
impressions  made  upon  him  by  external  things.  You 
show  him,  for  example,  two  colors,  and  ask  him  which 
appears  the  brighter,  or  it  may  be  the  more  agreeable. 
He  has  a  single  task  to  perform,  and  one  which  is  essen- 
tially the  same  as  in  objective  observation.  There  is 
little  difference  between  being  asked,  "Which  of  these 
two  colors  is  the  brighter?"  and  "Which  gives  you  the 
impression  of  greater  brightness?"  In  the  one  case  you 
are  supposed  to  recognize  the  external  fact,  and  in  the 
other  to  observe  your  sensory  response  to  the  external 
fact,  but  the  two  come  to  the  same  thing  in  most  cases. 
The  only  difficulty  arises  when  the  observer  uses 
'secondary  criteria'  of  the  external  fact,  and  thus 
judges  it  without  taking  account  of  his  impressions  of 


PROBLEMS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  33 

brightness;  but  such  difficulties  should  be  avoided  by 
excluding  the  possibility  of  secondary  criteria,  since  it 
is  practically  impossible  to  prevent  the  subject  from 
being  influenced  by  them  if  they  are  present.  With 
this  difficulty  avoided,  no  difference  remains  in  prac- 
tice between  this  simple  form  of  introspection  and  ordi- 
nary objective  observation,  and  no  reason  remains  for 
using  the  special  term,  'introspection',  in  referring  to 
this  sort  of  observation. 

The  more  complex  sort  of  introspection  occurs  in 
observing  inner  mental  processes.  Here  the  subject  has 
a  double  task,  to  carry  on  the  mental  operation  and  to 
observe  it.  Since  it  is  difficult  and  often  impossible  to 
perform  this  secondary  task  of  observation  along  with 
the  primary  task,  the  only  practicable  way  of  getting 
an  observation  is  first  to  perform  the  primary  task,  and 
then  without  delay  to  turn  about  and  observe  what  has 
just  passed  through  your  mind.  If  the  mental  process  is 
that  of  solving  a  problem,  first  solve  your  problem, 
devoting  your  whole  attention  to  it,  and  then  cast  a 
backward  glance  over  the  process  and  notice  what 
passed  through  your  mind.  If  the  process  is  of  only  a 
few  seconds'  duration,  the  backward  glance  at  its  close 
often  recovers  a  good  share  of  it — or  so  it  seems  to  the 
subject.  But,  at  best,  this  form  of  observation  is  more 
difficult  than  most  others  that  are  admitted  in  scientific 
work. 

Now  the  behaviorists  are  perhaps  not  serious  in 
demanding  that  the  first  form  of  introspection  be  aban- 
doned, though  they  appear  to  say  so.  If  it  were  dis- 
carded, visual  after-images,  difference  tones,  and  many 
other  so-called  'subjective'  sensations  would  have  to 


34  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

be  dismissed,  since  they  are,  as  yet,  known  to  us  only 
from  introspection.  The  complex  form  of  introspection, 
could  with  more  approach  to  justice  be  ruled  out;  yet 
even  from  it  some  results  have  come  with  such  regular- 
ity that  they  command  general  assent,  and  probably 
even  the  extreme  behaviorists  in  their  hearts  believe 
them.  The  clearest  instance  would  be  the  becoming 
automatic  and  relatively  unconscious  of  an  habitual  act ; 
but  there  is  much  other  testimony  regarding  the  proc- 
esses of  learning  and  the  simpler  sorts  of  thinking  that 
is  given  with  such  agreement  by  different  observers,  and 
fits  so  well  together,  that  it  can  scarcely  be  rejected 
by  one  who  takes  the  trouble  to  examine  it  carefully. 

But  if  the  extreme  behaviorist  errs  by  wishing  to 
exclude  from  psychology  a  legitimate  method  and  ob- 
ject of  study,  the  extreme  introspectionist,  who  would 
exclude  the  study  of  behavior  by  objective  methods,  is 
equally  at  fault.  The  majority  of  psychologists  are 
disposed  to  give  their  blessing  to  both  groups  of  en- 
thusiasts, and  to  hope  that  each  group  may  meet  with 
great  success  in  attacking  its  chosen  field.  Meanwhile, 
it  seems  that  neither  party  has  rightly  envisaged  the 
real  problem  of  psychology. 

A  beginner  in  psychology,  approaching  the  subject 
from  the  side  of  common  interests  and  unworried  as  yet 
by  controversies  within  the  ranks  of  psychologists, 
would  be  inclined  to  suppose  that  the  aim  of  the  science 
was  fairly  clear,  and  to  express  it  as  an  attempt  to  under- 
stand the  'workings  of  the  mind'.  He  wishes  to  be  in- 
formed how  we  learn  and  think,  and  what  leads  people 
to  feel  and  act  as  they  do.  He  is  interested,  namely,  in 
cause  and  effect,  or  what  may  be  called  dynamics. 


PROBLEMS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  35 

This  is  not  only  the  commonsense  point  of  view,  but 
also  the  point  of  view  that  is  most  in  evidence  in  the 
history  of  psychology.  Locke,  one  of  the  prime  movers 
in  psychological  study,  expressed  himself  as  designing 
to  give  "some  account  of  the  ways  whereby  our  under- 
standings come  to  attain  those  notions  of  things  we 
have"^  Berkeley,  in  his  Essay  towards  a  New  Theory 
of  Vision,  begins  by  saying,  "My  design  is  to  show  the 
manner  wherein  we  perceive  by  sight  the  distance, 
magnitude  and  situation  of  objects" ;  and  Hume  hoped, 
as  he  expressed  it  in  his  Inquiry  Concerning  Human 
Understanding,  to  discover,  at  least  in  some  degree, 
the  secret  springs  and  principles  by  which  the  human 
mind  is  actuated  in  its  operations,  just  as  Newton  had 
"determined  the  laws  and  forces,  by  which  the  revolu- 
tions of  the  planets  are  governed  and  directed."  Even 
in  recent  years,  while  psychology  has  usually  been 
formally  defined  as  the  descriptive  science  of  conscious- 
ness, the  actual  interests  of  psychologists,  as  revealed 
by  the  problems  taken  up,  have  centered  on  this  prob- 
lem of  cause  and  effect. 

What  is  meant  by  a  study  of  cause  and  effect — since 
we  no  longer  hope  to  discover  ultimate  causes — is  an 
attempt  to  gain  a  clear  view  of  the  action  or  process  in 
the  system  studied,  both  in  its  minute  elements  and  in 
its  broad  tendencies,  noting  whatever  uniformities 
occur,  and  what  laws  enable  us  to  conceive  the  whole 
process  in  an  orderly  fashion.  Now  neither  conscious- 
ness nor  behavior  provides  a  coherent  system  of  proc- 
esses for  causal  treatment.  Consciousness  is  not  a 
coherent  system,  because  much  of  the  process  that  is 

^  Essay  Concerning  Human  Understanding^  Book  I,  Chap.  I,  Sect.  2. 


36  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

partly  revealed  in  consciousness  goes  on  below  the 
threshold  of  consciousness ;  and  behavior,  considered  as 
a  series  of  motor  reactions  to  external  stimuli,  is  in- 
coherent because  it  leaves  out  of  account  the  process 
intervening  between  the  stimulus  and  the  reaction. 
Nor  do  consciousness  and  behavior  taken  together  pro- 
vide a  coherent  system,  since  much  of  the  internal 
process  intervening  between  stimulus  and  reaction  is 
unconscious.  We  shall  undoubtedly  have  to  look  to 
brain  physiology  for  a  minute  analysis  of  the  process; 
but  until  brain  physiology  is  able  to  give  us  such  an 
analysis,  and  probably  even  after  it  has  done  so,  we 
shall  derive  some  satisfaction  from  the  coarser  analysis 
which  we  can  derive  from  the  introspective  and  be- 
havioristic  methods  of  psychology.  But  the  essential 
thing  is  to  keep  the  dynamic  point  of  view,  and  to  be 
working  always  toward  a  clearer  view  of  the  mental 
side  of  vital  activity,  refusing  to  be  contented  with  the 
fragmentary  views  offered  us  by  the  exclusive  students 
of  either  consciousness  or  behavior,  but  endeavoring  to 
utilize  the  results  of  both  these  parties,  and  the  results 
of  brain  physiology  as  well,  for  an  understanding  of 
the  complete  processes  of  mental  activity  and  develop- 
ment. 

Once  the  point  of  view  of  a  dynamic  psychology  is 
gained,  two  general  problems  come  into  sight,  which 
may  be  named  the  problem  of  'mechanism'  and  the 
problem  of  'drive'.  One  is  the  problem,  how  we  do  a 
thing,  and  the  other  is  the  problem  of  what  induces  us 
to  do  it.  Take  the  case  of  the  pitcher  in  a  baseball  game. 
The  problem  of  mechanism  is  the  problem  how  he  aims, 
gauges  distance  and  amount  of  curve,  and  coordinates 


PROBLEMS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  37 

his  movements  to  produce  the  desired  end.  The  prob- 
lem of  drive  includes  such  questions  as  to  why  he  is  en- 
gaged in  this  exercise  at  all,  why  he  pitches  better  on 
one  day  than  on  another,  why  he  rouses  himself  more 
against  one  than  against  another  batter,  and  many 
similar  questions.  It  will  be  noticed  that  the  mechanism 
questions  are  asked  with  'How?'  and  the  drive  ques- 
tions with  'Why?'  Now  science  has  come  to  regard  the 
question  'Why?'  with  suspicion,  and  to  substitute  the 
question  'How?'  since  it  has  found  that  the  answer 
to  the  question  'Why?'  always  calls  for  a  further 
'Why?'  and  that  no  stability  or  finality  is  reached  in 
this  direction,  whereas  the  answer  to  the  question 
'How?'  is  always  good  as  far  as  it  is  accurate,  though, 
to  be  sure,  it  is  seldom  if  ever  complete.  It  may  be 
true  in  our  case,  also,  that  the  question  of  drive  is 
reducible  to  a  question  of  mechanism,  but  there  is 
prima  facie  justification  for  making  the  distinction. 
Certainly  the  motives  and  springs  of  action  of  human 
life  are  of  so  much  importance  as  to  justify  special  atten- 
tion to  them. 

This  distinction  between  drive  and  mechanism  may 
become  clearer  if  we  consider  it  in  the  case  of  a  machine. 
The  drive  here  is  the  power  applied  to  make  the 
mechanism  go;  the  mechanism  is  made  to  go,  and  is 
relatively  passive.  Its  passivity  is,  to  be  sure,  only 
relative,  since  the  material  and  structure  of  the  mech- 
anism determine  the  direction  that  shall  be  taken  by 
the  power  applied.  We  might  speak  of  the  mechanism 
as  reacting  to  the  power  applied  and  so  producing  the 
results.  But  the  mechanism  without  the  power  is 
inactive,  dead,  lacking  in  disposable  energy. 


38  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

In  some  forms  of  mechanism,  such  as  a  loaded  gun, 
stored  energy  is  present,  and  the  action  of  the  drive  is 
to  liberate  this  stored  energy,  which  then  does  the  rest 
of  the  work.  This  sort  of  mechanism  is  rather  similar 
to  that  of  a  living  creature.  The  muscles  contain  stored 
energy,  which  is  liberated  by  a  stimulus  reaching  them, 
the  stimulus  that  normally  reaches  them  being  the 
'nerve  impulse'  coming  along  a  motor  nerve.  The  nerve 
drives  the  muscle.  The  nerve  impulse  coming  out  along 
a  motor  nerve  originates  in  the  discharge  of  stored 
energy  in  the  nerve  cells  controlling  this  nerve;  and 
these  central  cells  are  themselves  excited  to  discharge 
by  nerve  impulses  reaching  them,  perhaps  from  a 
sensory  nerve.  The  sensory  nerve  drives  the  motor 
center,  being  itself  driven  by  a  stimulus  reaching  the 
sense  organ  from  without.  The  whole  reflex  mechanism, 
consisting  of  sense  organ,  sensory  nerve,  center,  motor 
nerve  and  muscle,  can  be  thought  of  as  a  unit;  and  its 
drive  is  then  the  external  stimulus. 

If  all  behavior  were  of  this  simple  reflex  type,  and 
consisted  of  direct  responses  to  present  stimuli,  there 
would  be  no  great  significance  in  the  distinction  between 
drive  and  mechanism.  The  drive  would  simply  be  the 
external  stimulus  and  the  mechanism  simply  the  whole 
organism.  On  the  other  hand,  what  we  mean  by  a 
'motive'  is  something  internal,  and  the  question  thus 
arises  whether  we  can  work  our  way  up  from  the  drive 
as  external  stimulus  to  the  drive  as  inner  motive. 

The  first  step  is  to  notice  the  physiological  facts  of 
'reinforcement'  or  'facilitation'  and  of  'inhibition'. 
These  mean,  in  neural  terms,  the  coming  together  of 
different  nerve  impulses,  with  the  result  in  some  cases 


PROBLEMS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  39 

that  one  strengthens  the  other,  and  in  some  cases  that 
one  weakens  or  suppresses  the  other.  Take  the  familiar 
'knee-jerk'  or  'patellar  reflex'  as  an  example.  This  in- 
voluntary movement  of  the  lower  leg,  produced  by  some 
of  the  thigh  muscles,  can  only  be  elicited  by  a  blow  on 
the  tendon  passing  in  front  of  the  knee  (or  some  equiva- 
lent, strictly  local  stimulus).  But  the  force  of  the  knee- 
jerk  can  be  greatly  altered  by  influences  coming  from 
other  parts  of  the  body.  A  sudden  noise  occurring  an 
instant  before  the  blow  at  the  knee  will  decidedly  rein- 
force the  knee-jerk,  while  soft  music  may  weaken  it. 
Clenching  the  fist  or  gritting  the  teeth  reinforces  the 
knee-jerk.  The  drive  operating  the  knee-jerk  in  such 
cases  is  not  entirely  the  local  stimulus,  but  other  cen- 
ters in  the  brain  and  spinal  cord,  being  themselves 
aroused  from  outside,  furnish  drive  for  the  center  that 
is  directly  responsible  for  the  movement.  If  one  nerv^e 
center  can  thus  furnish  drive  for  another,  there  is  some 
sense  in  speaking  of  drives. 

Still,  the  conception  of  'drive'  would  have  little  sig- 
nificance if  the  activity  aroused  in  any  center  lasted 
only  as  long  as  the  external  stimulus  acting  upon  it 
through  a  sensory  nerve;  for,  taken  as  a  whole,  the 
organism  would  still  be  passive  and  simply  responsive 
to  the  complex  of  external  stimuli  acting  on  it  at  any 
moment.  It  is  therefore  a  very  important  fact,  for  our 
purpose,  that  a  nerve  center,  aroused  to  activity,  does 
not  in  all  cases  relapse  into  quiescence,  after  a  momen- 
tary discharge.  Its  state  of  activity  may  outlast  the 
stimulus  that  aroused  it,  and  this  residual  activity  in 
one  center  may  act  as  drive  to  another  center.  Or,  a 
center  may  be  'sub-excited'  by  an  external  stimulus 


40  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

that  is  not  capable  of  arousing  it  to  full  discharge;  and, 
while  thus  sub-excited,  it  may  influence  other  centers, 
either  by  way  of  reinforcement  or  by  way  of  inhibition. 
Thus,  though  the  drive  for  nerve  activity  may  be  ulti- 
mately external,  at  any  one  moment  there  are  internal 
sources  of  influence  tumishing  drive  to  other  parts  of 
the  system. 

This  relationship  between  two  mechanisms,  such  that 
one,  being  partially  excited,  becomes  the  drive  of 
another,  is  specially  significant  in  the  case  of  what  have 
been  called  'preparatory  and  consummatory  reactions' 
(Sherrington).  A  consummatory  reaction  is  one  of 
direct  value  to  the  animal — one  directly  bringing  satis- 
faction— such  as  eating  or  escaping  from  danger.  The 
objective  mark  of  a  consummatory  reaction  is  that  it 
terminates  a  series  of  acts,  and  is  followed  by  rest  or 
perhaps  by  a  shift  to  some  new  series.  Introspectively, 
we  know  such  reactions  by  the  satisfaction  and  sense  of 
finality  that  they  bring.  The  preparatory  reactions 
are  only  mediately  of  benefit  to  the  organism,  their 
value  lying  in  the  fact  that  they  lead  to,  and  make  pos- 
sible, a  consummatory  reaction.  Objectively,  the  mark 
of  a  preparatory  reaction  is  that  it  occurs  as  a  pre- 
liminary stage  in  a  series  of  acts  leading  up  to  a  con- 
summatory reaction.  Consciously,  a  preparatory  reac- 
tion is  marked  by  a  state  of  tension. 

Preparatory  reactions  are  of  two  kinds.  We  have, 
first,  such  reactions  as  looking  and  listening,  which  are 
readily  evoked  when  the  animal  is  in  a  passive  or  resting 
condition,  and  which  consist  in  a  coming  to  attention 
and  instituting  a  condition  of  readiness  for  a  yet  unde- 
termined stimulus  that  may  arouse  further  response. 


PROBLEMS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  41 

The  other  kind  consists  of  reactions  which  are  not 
evoked  except  when  the  mechanism  for  a  consummatory 
reaction  has  been  aroused  and  is  in  activity.  A  typical 
series  of  events  is  the  follow^ing :  a  sound  or  Hght  strikes 
the  sense  organ  and  arouses  the  appropriate  attentive 
reaction;  this  permits  a  stimulus  of  significance  to  the 
animal  to  take  effect — for  example,  the  sight  of  prey, 
which  arouses  a  trend  towards  the  consummatory 
reaction  of  devouring  it.  But  this  consummatory  reac- 
tion cannot  at  once  take  place ;  what  does  take  place  is 
the  preparatory  reaction  of  stalking  or  pursuing  the 
prey.  The  series  of  preparatory  reactions  may  be  very 
complicated,  and  it  is  evidently  driven  by  the  trend 
towards  the  consummatory  reaction.  That  there  is  a 
persistent  inner  tendency  towards  the  consummatory 
reaction  is  seen  when,  for  instance,  a  hunting  dog  loses 
the  trail ;  if  he  were  simply  carried  along  from  one  detail 
of  the  hunting  process  to  another  by  a  succession  of 
stimuli  calling  out  simple  reflexes,  he  would  cease  hunt- 
ing as  soon  as  the  trail  ceased  or  follow  it  back  again; 
whereas  what  he  does  is  to  explore  about,  seeking  the 
trail,  as  we  say.  This  seeking,  not  being  evoked  by  any 
external  stimulus  (but  rather  by  the  absence  of  an  ex- 
ternal stimulus),  must  be  driven  by  some  internal  force; 
and  the  circumstances  make  it  clear  that  the  inner  drive 
is  directed  towards  the  capture  of  the  prey. 

The  dog's  behavior  is  to  be  interpreted  as  follows :  the 
mechanism  for  a  consummatory  reaction,  having  been 
set  into  activity  by  a  suitable  stimulus,  acts  as  a  drive 
operating  other  mechanisms  which  give  the  preparatory 
reactions.  Each  preparatory  reaction  may  be  a  response 
in  part  to  some  external  stimulus,  but  it  is  facilitated  by 


42  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

the  drive  towards  the  consummatory  reaction.  Not 
only  are  some  reactions  thus  facilitated,  but  others 
which  in  other  circumstances  would  be  evoked  by  ex- 
ternal stimuli  are  inhibited.  The  dog  on  the  trail  does 
not  stop  to  pass  the  time  of  day  with  another  dog  met 
on  the  way ;  he  is  too  busy.  When  an  animal  or  man  is 
too  busy  or  too  much  in  a  hurry  to  respond  to  stimuli 
that  usually  get  responses  from  him,  he  is  being  driven 
by  some  internal  tendency. 

'Drive'  as  we  have  thus  been  led  to  conceive  of  it 
in  the  simpler  sort  of  case,  is  not  essentially  distinct 
from  'mechanism'.  The  drive  is  a  mechanism  already 
aroused  and  thus  in  a  position  to  furnish  stimulation 
to  other  mechanisms.  Any  mechanism  might  be  a  drive. 
But  it  is  the  mechanisms  directed  towards  consum- 
matory reactions — ^whether  of  the  simpler  sort  seen  in 
animals  or  of  the  more  complex  sort  exemplified  by 
human  desires  and  motives — that  are  most  likely  to 
act  as  drives.  Some  mechanisms  act  at  once  and  re- 
lapse into  quiet,  while  others  can  only  bring  their  action 
to  completion  by  first  arousing  other  mechanisms.  But 
there  is  no  absolute  distinction,  and  it  will  be  well  to 
bear  in  mind  the  possibility  that  any  mechanism  may 
be  under  certain  circumstances  the  source  of  stimula- 
tion that  arouses  other  mechanisms  to  activity. 

The  inadequacy  of  either  the  consciousness  or  the 
behavior  psychology,  in  their  narrower  formulations  at 
least,  is  that  they  fail  to  consider  questions  like  these. 
Their  advantage  as  against  a  dynamic  psychology  is 
that  they  are  closer  to  observable  phenomena.  Be- 
havior we  can  observe,  consciousness  we  can  observe 
ivith  some  difificulty,  but  the  inner  dynamics  of  the  men- 


PROBLEMS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  43 

tal  processes  must  be  inferred  rather  than  observed. 
Even  so,  psychology  is  in  no  worse  case  than  the  other 
sciences.  They  all  seek  to  understand  what  goes  on 
below  the  surface  of  things,  to  form  conceptions  of  the 
inner  workings  of  things  that  shall  square  with  the 
known  facts  and  make  possible  the  prediction  of  what 
will  occur  under  given  conditions.  A  dynamic  psychol- 
ogy must  utilize  the  observations  of  consciousness  and 
behavior  as  indications  of  the  'workings  of  the  mind'; 
and  that,  in  spite  of  formal  definitions  to  the  contrary, 
is  what  psychologists  have  been  attempting  to  accom- 
plish since  the  beginning. 


Ill 

NATIVE  EQUIPMENT  OF  MAN 

An  adult  individual,  whom  we  may  imagine  stand- 
ing before  us  for  examination,  contains  within  himself 
a  large  assortment  of  possible  activities.  We  know 
that  if  we  show  him  familiar  objects,  he  will  recognize 
and  name  them ;  that  if  we  ask  him  suitable  questions, 
he  will  understand  and  answer;  that  if  we  set  him  suit- 
able tasks,  he  will  perform  themi ;  that  anger  or  embar- 
rassment or  amusement  can  be  awakened  in  him  by 
appropriate  means;  that  he  can  walk,  jump,  move  his 
eyes,  breathe,  eat,  digest,  and,  in  short,  display  a  large 
repertory  of  accomplishments.  He  is  equipped  with  a 
whole  machine-shop  of  mechanisms  for  accomplishing 
this  variety  of  results.  We  know,  however,  that  he  will 
not  behave  in  a  purely  machine-like  manner.  He  may 
refuse  to  answer  some  of  our  questions;  he  may  object 
to  being  detained  for  further  examination,  on  the  plea 
that  he  has  business  of  his  own  to  attend  to ;  and  if  we 
follow  him  through  the  day,  we  shall  observe  him  at 
one  time  start  out  in  quest  of  food,  at  another  in  quest 
of  friends,  at  another  to  seek  rest.  We  shall  observe 
him  devoting  hours  of  attention  and  effort  to  such  ap- 
parently unstimulating  objects  as  columns  of  figures 
or  rows  of  potato  plants.  He  evidently  contains  within 
himself  a  variety  of  driving  forces,  as  well  as  a  variety 
of  mechanisms  to  be  driven. 

Finding  the  adult  individual  thus  equipped,  we  wish 
to  know  how  the  equipment  was  obtained,  how  much 


NATIVE  EQUIPMENT  OF  MAN  45 

of  it  was  provided  by  nature  and  heredity,  and  how 
much  has  been  added  by  the  individual's  own  efforts  and 
experience.  We  wish  to  make  a  distinction  similar  to 
that  which  we  make  when  we  say  that  the  color  of  a 
man's  eyes,  or  the  shape  of  his  nose,  is  a  native  trait, 
while  the  tan  on  his  cheeks  and  the  calluses  on  his  palms 
are  acquired.  It  is  not  always  easy  to  tell  whether  a 
given  bit  of  equipment  is  native  or  acquired.  If  it 
functions  from  birth  on,  as  in  the  case  of  breathing,  it 
is  of  course  native.  If  it  begins  to  function  at  a  certain 
period  after  birth,  even  when  conditions  have  been  so 
controlled  that  no  chance  has  been  afforded  for  acquir- 
ing it  through  experience,  as  in  Spalding's  experiment 
on  the  flight  of  birds,  it  is  native.  Very  often  it  is 
impossible  to  apply  either  of  these  tests,  and  then  we 
are  driven  to  the  use  of  a  third,  less  direct  criterion. 
Where  the  members  of  a  species  or  other  natural  group 
are  either  more  alike  or  more  different  in  any  respect 
than  can  be  accounted  for  by  their  individual  experience, 
we  have  reason  to  believe  that  the  likeness  or  difference 
in  their  traits  is  due  to  the  native  factor.  Thus  cats  are 
more  alike  in  their  propensity  to  hunt  mice  than  can  be 
accounted  for  by  their  experiences ;  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  some  cats  are  better  mousers  than  others  to  a 
greater  degree  than  we  can  explain  by  differences  in 
their  bringing  up ;  we  conclude  accordingly  that  cats  are 
natural  mousers,  but  that  some  of  them  are  naturally 
better  mousers  than  others.  Of  course,  experience  will 
affect  a  cat's  behavior  towards  mice,  but  not  to  such  a 
degree,  probably,  as  would  account  for  the  likeness  and 
differences  which  we  find. 


46  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

Language  affords  another  good  example.  Men  as  a 
race  are  so  much  different  from  animals  that  we  have 
reason  to  speak  of  a  native  aptitude  for  speech  common 
to  all  men.  Yet  men  are  not  absolutely  alike  in  this 
function,  since  different  languages  are  spoken  in  dif- 
ferent localities,  and  since,  in  the  same  locality,  some 
individuals  use  language  much  better  than  others.  Now 
the  different  languages  of  different  groups  of  men  are 
handed  on  from  generation  to  generation,  and  are  ac- 
cordingly explained,  in  any  generation,  by  the  different 
training  and  tradition.  But  the  fact  that  the  members 
of  any  community  differ  in  their  mastery  of  the  language 
of  that  community  cannot  be  altogether  explained  by 
differences  of  training,  but  must  mean  that  individuals 
differ  in  the  degree  of  their  native  aptitude  for  language. 
The  uncertainty  of  this  third  criterion  of  native  equip- 
ment is  obvious :  it  requires  an  evaluation  of  the  possible 
effect  of  training  and  experience,  and  this  requires 
knowledge  and  good  judgment,  and  may  at  best  only 
give  us  probabilities.  We  can  be  certain,  however,  that 
there  are  differences  between  men  in  native  aptitude; 
for  whenever  a  number  of  individuals  subject  themselves 
for  a  long  time  to  special  training  in  a  particular  line, 
such  as  typewriting,  it  is  found  that,  in  spite  of  great 
improvement  by  all,  great  differences  remain  in  their 
final  performance.  When  experience  has  thus  done  its 
utmost  to  make  men  alike,  they  remain  different;  and 
we  might  add  that  when  experience  has  done  its  utmost 
to  make  men  different,  they  often  remain  surprisingly 
alike  in  some  fundamental  respects.  There  must  there- 
fore be  native  equipment  common  to  men,  as  well  as  na- 
tive equipment  differing  from  one  individual  to  another. 


NATIVE  EQUIPMENT  OF  MAN  47 

The  new-bom  baby,  without  learning  of  any  sort, 
has  the  use  of  his  heart,  lungs,  stomach,  intestines, 
liver,  kidneys,  and  in  short  of  all  of  his  internal  organs. 
He  also  uses  all  his  muscles,  bends  and  extends  his 
limbs,  moves  his  trunk,  head,  and  eyes  in  all  directions, 
and  makes  complex  and  skilful  movements  of  lips,  jaws, 
tongue,  throat,  and  larynx.  He  possesses,  as  part  of  his 
native  equipment,  not  only  the  mere  power  of  muscular 
action,  but  the  fundamental  coordinations  of  muscular 
action.  These  fundamental  coordinations  are  provided 
by  what  are  called  the  'lower*  nerve  centers  in  the  cord 
and  brain  stem ;  and  it  appears  that  the  organization  of 
these  lower  centers  is  provided  by  nature.  Native 
equipment  includes  also  the  use  of  the  sense  organs. 
The  child  cannot  be  said  to  learn  to  see  or  hear,  nor 
to  acquire  the  power  of  seeing  red  and  blue,  or  that  of 
hearing  high  and  low  tones,  by  training  and  experience. 
Given  the  proper  stage  in  the  natural  development  of 
the  visual  apparatus,  and  given  the  proper  external 
stimulus,  and  the  child  sees  red  simply  because  he  is 
made  that  way;  or,  if  he  chances  to  belong  to  that 
minority  of  male  children  who  are  bom  color  blind,  he 
does  not  see  red  because  he  is  bom  that  way. 

Thus,  the  fundamentals  of  sensation,  motion,  and 
organic  function  are  to  be  entered  in  the  column  headed 
'native  equipment'.    There  is  still  more  to  go  there. 

Not  only  does  nature  provide  for  the  reception  of 
stimuli  from  outside,  and  for  the  production  of  move- 
ments, but  for  the  linking  of  certain  movements  to 
certain  stimuli.  The  nerve  mechanism  that  arouses  a 
group  of  muscles  to  a  coordinated  movement  is  itself 
so  connected  to  the  nerve  leading  in  from  a  certain  sense 


48  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

organ  as  to  be  aroused  by  a  stimulus  acting  on  that  sense 
organ.  The  sensory  mechanisms  and  the  motor  mech- 
anisms are  geared  together  into  sensori-motor  mech- 
anisms, and  many  such  belong  under  the  head  of  native 
equipment.  Swallowing,  which  occurs  from  birth  on, 
is  a  reaction  of  certain  muscles  to  the  stimulus  of  liquid 
or  soft  substance  in  the  mouth ;  sneezing  is  a  reaction  of 
certain  other  muscles  to  an  irritating  stimulus  within 
the  nose.  The  numerous  and  varied  native  reactions 
can  be  grouped  or  classified  according  to  the  function  or 
use  which  they  subserve. 

There  is  a  group  of  food-getting  reactions:  sucking, 
chewing,  swallowing,  spitting  out  anything  bitter,  mov- 
ing the  head  from  side  to  side  in  search  of  the  nipple, 
crying  when  hungry.  In  many,  if  not  all  animals,  food- 
seeking  activities  on  a  larger  scale  are  provided  by 
nature,  and  often  spoken  of  as  the  'hunting  instinct'. 
In  the  child  this  type  of  reaction  does  not  appear  very 
clearly,  but  perhaps  because  of  the  highly  domesticated 
condition  of  the  young  human  animal. 

A  second  group  covers  the  danger-avoiding  reactions. 
The  simplest  of  these  is  the  pulling  away  of  the  hand  or 
foot  when  it  is  burned,  pricked,  or  pinched.  Squirming 
of  the  body  appears  in  the  new-bom  infant  in  response 
to  similar  stimuli.  Coughing  and  sneezing,  winking 
when  a  foreign  substance  touches  or  approaches  the 
eye,  are  analogous  reactions  of  other  members.  More 
general  protective  reactions  include  dodging,  crouching, 
huddling,  and  especially  flight.  The  simpler  danger- 
avoiding  reactions,  if  unsuccessful,  give  way  to  flight, 
the  most  energetic  and  efficacious  reaction  of  the 
group. 


NATIVE  EQUIPMENT  OF  MAN  49 

Somewhat  similar  in  function  is  the  group  of  reac- 
tions against  faUing  or  other  disturbances  of  bodily 
equilibrium,  for  which  there  is  a  special  sense  organ  in 
the  inner  ear.  Resistance  to  impressed  movements,  or 
to  external  restraint,  that  is  to  say,  to  being  pushed  or 
pulled,  held  or  impeded  in  one's  own  movements,  is 
also  a  natural  type  of  reaction.  Even  the  young  child 
shows,  in  these  ways,  a  germ  of  independence. 

Swimming,  crawling,  jumping,  walking,  trotting,  gal- 
loping, climbing,  flying,  or  some  form  of  locomotion, 
is  part  of  the  native  equipment  of  every  animal  except 
man;  and  the  probability  is  that,  in  man  as  well,  creep- 
ing, walking,  running,  and  perhaps  climbing,  are  not 
really  learned,  but  simply  come  into  function  when  the 
native  mechanisms  providing  for  them  have  reached  the 
necessary  stage  of  natural  growth. 

The  new-bom  child  gives  evidence  of  native  ability 
to  operate  his  vocal  cords.  He  can  vocalize,  and  a  little 
later,  before  he  shows  signs  of  learning  from  others,  he 
comes  to  make  a  variety  of  vowel  and  consonantal 
sounds.  He  even  makes  simple  combinations  of  vowel 
and  consonant,  such  as  'ma-ma'  and  'da-da',  before  he 
really  begins  to  imitate  the  speech  of  others.  Thus  the 
motor  elements  of  speech  are  part  of  his  native  equip- 
ment. Crying,  weeping,  sobbing,  frowning  and  scowl- 
ing, smiling  and  laughing,  are  all  primarily  native  reac- 
tions. 

A  variety  of  exploratory  reactions  are  provided  by 
nature.  The  simplest  are  the  turning  of  the  eyes  toward 
an  object  seen  in  indirect  vision,  the  pricking  up  of  the 
ears  in  animals  and  the  turning  of  head  and  eyes  in  men 
as  well  as  animals  in  response  to  a  sound,  and  the  feeling 


50  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

of  an  object  with  the  hands  and  carrying  it  to  the  mouth. 
With  these  belong  also  the  approaching  of  an  object  that 
has  aroused  curiosity.  Closely  related  to  the  exploring 
reactions  are  those  of  manipulation,  and  experimenting 
with  things  to  see  how  they  behave.  We  have  in  this 
group  of  reactions  the  germ  of  the  activities  that  lead  to 
knowledge. 

When  a  child  or  young  animal  is  fresh  and  well,  it  is 
not  sparing  of  muscular  activity,  but  goes  through  a 
variety  of  movements  with  no  apparent  stimulus  or 
object  in  view.  Probably  slight  stimuli  are  present, 
but  it  may  at  least  be  said  to  be  part  of  the  native 
equipment  to  be  active  in  a  motor  way,  as  well,  indeed, 
as  in  the  way  of  exploration.  Activity  leads  after  a  time 
to  fatigue,  and  rest  and  sleep  may  properly  be  included 
among  the  native  reactions. 

There  are  also  several  classes  of  more  complex  reac- 
tions that  are  called  out  by  other  persons.  Individuals 
of  the  opposite  sex  act  as  stimuli,  especially  in  youth, 
to  display  and  courtship,  and  quite  a  variety  of  reac- 
tions, differing  according  to  the  species.  Since  the 
animal  or  human  being  is  not  responsive  to  this  class 
of  stimuli  till  he  reaches  sex  maturity,  his  behavior  then 
includes  much  that  has  been  learned,  but  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  fundamentals  are  provided  by  nature. 
The  reaction  of  the  young  mother  to  her  little  babe  is 
the  strongest  instance  of  a  protective  reaction  toward 
the  young  and  helpless  that  appears  in  some  degree  in 
both  sexes. 

Herding  together  and  playing  together  are  typical 
instances  of  reactions  to  be  classed  under  the  gregarious 
instinct.    When  children,  or  adults,  are  together,  we  see 


NATIVE  EQUIPMENT  OF  MAN  51 

also  a  tendency  to  become  the  leader,  if  possible,  or  to 
follow  the  leader  when  dominance  has  been  established. 
These  tendencies  are  probably  instinctive  rather  than 
derived  wholly  from  individual  experience. 
.  We  see  also  certain  negative  reactions  towards  the 
social  group  or  some  members  of  it,  namely,  embarrass- 
ment, sh3aiess,  and  fighting. 

Closely  connected  with  these  native  or  instinctive 
reactions  are  the  bodily  and  conscious  states  called 
emotions,  and  these  also  must  be  included  under  the 
head  of  native  equipment.  For  it  is  quite  evident  that 
fear,  anger,  grief,  mirth,  lust,  and  the  other  emotions 
do  not  arise  in  the  individual  as  the  result  of  training. 
He  learns  to  be  afraid  of  certain  objects,  but  he  does 
not  learn  how  to  be  afraid.  All  he  needs,  in  order  to  be 
afraid,  is  to  receive  the  proper  stimulus,  and  then  he  is 
afraid  by  force  of  nature. 

The  close  connection  of  the  emotions  with  certain 
overt  reactions,  such  as  flight,  fighting,  laughing  or 
crying,  and  also  with  certain  internal  bodily  changes, 
such  as  quickened  heartbeat  and  breathing,  flushing  or 
paling  of  the  skin,  has  long  been  a  matter  of  common  ob- 
servation, but  the  exact  nature  of  the  connection  has 
not  been  at  all  obvious.  The  overt  act  has  been  usually 
thought  of  as  the  effect  of  the  emotion,  and  the  internal 
bodily  changes,  along  with  facial  movements,  have  been 
conceived  as  'expressing'  the  emotion.  About  thirty 
years  ago,  James  proposed,  and  also  Lange,  to  regard  the 
conscious  state  of  emotion  as  secondary  to  the  bodily 
reaction,  and  especially  to  the  internal  part  of  it.  Thus 
the  emotion  of  fear  would  be  a  blend  of  sensations  set 
up  by  the  internal  bodily  changes,  these  being  produced 


52  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

directly  by  the  perception  of  danger.  The  perception  of 
danger  would  arouse  the  internal  bodily  changes,  and 
the  sensations  set  up  by  these  bodily  changes,  blending 
together,  would  make  up  the  conscious  state  of  fear. 
This  view  of  the  emotions,  called  the  James-Lange 
theory,  has  been  the  subject  of  a  vast  amount  of  dis- 
cussion, and  is  still  to  be  regarded  as  a  hypothesis  de- 
serving of  careful  consideration  rather  than  as  an  ac- 
cepted conclusion.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt,  I  be- 
lieve, that  sensations  caused  by  the  bodily  changes 
form  part,  at  least,  of  the  conscious  emotion. 

The  relation  of  the  bodily  changes  and  the  emotion 
has  come  into  much  clearer  light  through  recent  physi- 
ological studies.  Every  one  knows  that  the  sight  of  food 
makes  a  hungry  man's  saliva  flow ;  and  experiments  have 
shown  that  it  also  starts  the  secretion  of  the  gastric 
juice.  Thus  an  internal  condition  of  readiness  for  the 
food  is  aroused  along  with  the  desire  to  eat  it.  More 
surprising,  perhaps,  is  the  fact  discovered  by  Cannon  ^ 
by  the  use  of  the  X-rays,  that  fear  or  anger  is  attended 
by  a  prompt  cessation  of  the  churning  movements  of 
the  stomach,  as  it  is  attended  also  by  stopping  of  the 
flow  of  the  gastric  juice.  In  fact,  the  whole  digestive 
activity  is  side-tracked  during  these  emotions,  and  the 
blood  is  driven  from  the  digestive  organs  to  the  heart, 
brain,  and  muscles.  Thus,  once  more,  a  condition  of 
bodily  readiness  is  produced  suitable  to  the  muscular 
exertions  to  which  the  angry  or  frightened  animal  or 
man  is  impelled. 

1  For  a  condensed  and  readable  account  of  these  and  other  studies  by- 
Cannon,  see  his  Bodily  Changes  in  Pain,  Hunger,  Fear  and  Rage, 
New  York,  191 5. 


NATIVE  EQUIPMENT  OF  MAN  ^    53 

The  bodily  preparation  for  flight  or  fighting  goes 
much  further  than  this.  Not  only  is  the  digestive  activ- 
ity checked,  but  the  heart  beats  rapidly,  the  blood  pres- 
sure rises,  and  the  breathing  becomes  deeper  and  more 
rapid — all  suitable  preparations  for  a  period  of  intense 
muscular  activity.  Sweat  may  break  out  on  the  skin 
and  thus  make  an  early  start  towards  the  elimination  of 
heat  from  the  body  that  must  occur  with  muscular 
activity.  All  of  these  bodily  changes,  it  is  interesting 
to  note,  result  through  the  action  on  the  organs  of  the 
sympathetic  system  of  nerves,  which,  though  not  under 
voluntary  control,  is  thus  shown  to  be  aroused  by  the 
brain.  But  the  most  curious  set  of  facts  recently  added 
by  the  physiologists  to  our  knowledge  of  emotional 
states  concerns  the  participation  of  two  small  glands 
that  are  adjuncts  of  the  sympathetic  system — the 
adrenal  glands,  so  named  from  their  location  near  to  the 
kidneys,  though  they  are  not  directly  related  to  the 
latter  organs  in  function.  They  are  glands  producing  an 
'internal  secretion',  that  is  to  say,  a  fluid  discharged 
into  the  blood  stream,  and  by  it  carried  to  all  the  organs 
of  the  body,  many  of  which  it  takes  effect  upon,  the 
effect  varying  with  the  organ.  The  heart  it  stimulates 
to  greater  activity,  the  blood  vessels  of  the  internal 
organs  it  causes  to  constrict,  the  movements  of  the 
stomach  and  intestines  it  stops,  the  liver  it  excites  to 
pour  out  into  the  blood  its  stores  of  sugar,  that  best 
fuel  for  rapid  combustion  by  the  muscles,  the  muscles, 
in  some  obscure  but  efficient  way,  it  preserves  from 
fatigue,  and  finally  the  blood  itself  it  puts  in  such  a 
condition  that  it  will  clot  rapidly  in  any  wound  that 
may  chance  to  occur.    Now  Cannon  has  demonstrated 


54  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

by  a  whole  cycle  of  experiments  that  the  adrenal  glands 
are  excited  during  pain,  fear,  and  rage  to  pour  out  their 
secretion  into  the  blood,  and  to  produce  the  changes 
just  listed ;  and  by  this  means,  as  well  as  by  the  direct 
action  of  the  sympathetic  nerves,  the  body  is  brought 
into  a  condition  of  eminent  preparedness  for  the  activ- 
ities of  flight,  self-defense,  or  aggression. 

The  significance  of  these  discoveries  for  the  psychol- 
ogy of  the  emotions  is  evidently  very  great.  The  bodily 
changes  that  accompany  emotion  are  now  seen  to  be 
much  more  than  merely  incidental.  At  least  in  the  cases 
of  fear  and  anger,  they  are  of  extreme  importance  as  a 
preparation  for  the  overt  action  which  is  likely  to  fol- 
low ;  and  the  same  can  be  said  of  the  pleasurable  state  of 
appetite  for  food.  Whether  the  conscious  emotion  con- 
sists entirely  of  sensations  of  these  internal  changes,  can- 
not be  said ;  but  it  is  quite  likely  to  be  that  in  part,  since 
organic  sensations  must  result  from  the  internal  changes 
described.  Cannon  mentions  the  feeling  of  great 
strength  that  attends  the  bodily  state  of  readiness  for 
great  exertion ;  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  this  feeling  is 
a  complex  of  organic  sensations.  In  part,  then,  it  is 
rather  probable  that  an  emotion  is  the  way  the  body 
feels  when  it  is  prepared  for  a  certain  reaction. 

The  emotion  is  also  impulsive;  it  is  an  impulsion 
towards  the  particular  reaction  that  the  body  is  pre- 
pared for.  Fear  is  an  impulse  to  escape,  and  at  the  same 
time,  organically,  a  readiness  for  the  exertion  of  escape ; 
and  anger  is  an  impulse  to  do  damage,  and  at  the  same 
time  a  bodily  readiness  for  the  exertion  of  fighting. 
Appetite  is  an  impulse  to  eat  and  at  the  same  time  a 
bodily  readiness  for  the  reception  of  food.     Much  the 


NATIVE  EQUIPMENT  OF  MAN  55 

same  can  be  said  of  certain  other  emotions,  if  not  of  all. 
The  emotion  with  its  bodily  state  is  a  sort  of  preparatory 
reaction  looking  towards  the  consummatory  reaction  at 
which  the  whole  process  is  aimed.  A  dangerous  object 
arouses  the  impulse  to  flee,  a  drive  towards  the  con- 
summation of  escape,  while  at  the  same  time  it  arouses 
the  sympathetic  nerves  and  adrenal  glands,  and  through 
them  checks  digestion,  hastens  the  heart-beat,  and  in- 
creases the  supply  of  fuel  available  for  muscular  activity. 

Whether  these  newer  discoveries  and  conceptions  are 
favorable  to  the  James-Lange  theory  of  the  emotions  is 
not  perfectly  clear.  Cannon  calls  attention  to  the  fact 
that  the  bodily  changes  in  fear  and  anger  are  the  same, 
though  the  emotions  are  different,  and  infers  that  the 
emotion  cannot  be  wholly  a  reflection  of  the  bodily  state. 
The  bodily  state  which  he  has  discovered  might,  indeed, 
be  better  correlated  with  the  more  generic  conscious 
state  of  excitement,  which  Wundt  has  put  forward  as 
one  of  the  elementary  feelings.  Probably  this  bodily 
state  occurs  when  the  emotion  is  not  strictly  either  fear 
or  anger.  Cannon  finds  evidence  of  it  in  athletes  before 
and  during  a  contest,  and  in  students  during  an  exam- 
ination, though  the  conscious  state  in  these  cases  is 
probably  not  exactly  either  fear  or  rage ;  it  would  better 
be  named  zeal,  determination,  or  excitement.  Yet  it  is 
not  at  all  improbable  that  minor  differences  in  the 
bodily  condition  exist  corresponding  to  these  differences 
in  the  emotional  state,  so  that  the  body  is  not  quite  the 
same  in  fear  as  in  anger;  and  consequently  the  James- 
Lange  theory  is  not  to  be  altogether  discarded  as  yet. 

What  the  theory  certainly  seems  to  lack  is  a  sufficient 
emphasis  on  the  impulsive  aspect  of  the  emotion,  its 


56  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

tendency  towards  some  consummation.  James  said, 
more  or  less,  no  doubt,  in  a  spirit  of  playful  paradox, 
"We  are  angry  because  we  strike,"  so  including  the 
consummatory  reaction  of  striking  along  with  the  pre- 
paratory bodily  changes  as  contributory  to  the  complex 
of  sensations  that  constituted  the  emotion.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  the  striking  deserves  separate  consideration, 
for  the  impulse  to  strike  or  otherwise  damage  our  an- 
tagonist is  the  most  important  part  of  the  whole  com- 
plex. It  represents  the  orientation  of  the  whole  organ- 
ism. Recognition  of  this  fact  is  not  absent  from  James's 
treatment,  but  it  remained  for  McDougalU  to  give  it 
the  emphasis  it  deserved.  An  emotion,  he  says,  is 
part  and  parcel  of  an  instinct.  The  instinct  has  a  cog- 
nitive or  perceptive,  an  emotional,  and  a  conative  or 
impulsive  aspect,  the  last  leading  over  into  motor  action. 
In  the  case  of  fear,  the  cognitive  aspect  is  the  perception 
of  danger,  the  emotion  is  the  inner  state  of  fear,  and  the 
conative  aspect  is  the  impulse  to  escape,  leading  to  the 
actual  movements  of  escape.  Instead  of  treating  the 
second  aspect  as  purely  subjective,  we  may  now  utilize 
the  results  of  Cannon  and  conceive  of  the  emotion  as 
representative  of  the  bodily  state  of  preparedness. 
Danger  arouses  a  'set'  of  the  nervous  system  towards 
escape  and  at  the  same  time,  through  the  sympathetic 
division,  an  organic  readiness  for  the  exertion  of  es- 
caping. 

The  admission  ought  certainly  to  be  made  that  we 
have  little  knowledge  of  the  bodily  conditions  attending 
emotions  (or  attended  by  emotions),  except  in  a  few 
instances:  fear,  rage,  hunger,  and  lust.     In  these  in- 

^  In  his  Introduction  to  Social  Psychology. 


NATIVE  EQUIPMENT  OF  MAN  57 

stances  the  set  towards  a  consummatory  reaction  and 
the  concomitant  organic  preparedness  are  clearly  pres- 
ent, and  the  emotion,  as  a  subjective  state,  may  reason- 
ably be  regarded  as  representative  of  this  set  and  this 
preparedness.  There  are  a  number  of  other  bodily  con- 
ditions of  which  the  same  sort  of  thing  can  be  said: 
thirst,  suffocation,  discomfort  from  cold  or  from  heat, 
drowsiness,  fatigue.  In  each  case  there  is  a  drive 
towards  a  consummatory  reaction — drinking,  getting 
air,  warmth,  coolness,  sleep  or  rest — and  in  each  case 
there  are  internal  bodily  changes  in  the  direction  of 
preparing  for  this  reaction,  or  of  accomplishing  in  some 
measure  the  same  end-result.  Also  it  can  be  said  that 
the  subjective  states  accompanying  these  bodily  con- 
ditions have  a  considerable  analogy  with  emotion,  even 
though  they  are  not  usually  classed  with  the  emotions. 
From  the  standpoint  of  the  James-Lange  theory  they 
can  perfectly  well  be  regarded  as  emotions.  The  im- 
pulse to  general  activity,  which  we  see  especially  in 
children,  but  which  is  characteristic  generally  of  joyful 
states  of  mind,  probably  goes  with  a  bodily  state  of 
freshness  and  surplus  energy,  the  subjective  side  of 
which  may  be  the  feeling  of  wellbeing,  'euphoria'. 

When  we  consider  mirth  or  amusement,  we  have  no 
difficulty  in  identifying  the  impulse  involved,  which  is 
simply  the  impulse  to  smile  and  laugh — though  the 
ultimate  biological  utility  of  these  peculiar  reactions  is 
not  clear.  There  are  also  internal  changes,  especially 
circulatory,  that  we  know  to  accompany  the  subjective 
state  of  mirth,  and  nothing  is  more  probable  than  that 
there  are  other  internal  changes  belonging  with  this 
state  but  not  yet  discovered;  so  that  the  mutual  rela- 


58  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

tions  of  subjective  state,  internal  bodily  condition,  and 
overt  activity  are  the  same  here  as  in  case  of  fear  and 
rage.  Grief,  in  its  primitive  form,  such  as  we  see.  in 
young  children,  is  an  impulse  to  weep,  again  with  in- 
ternal bodily  changes.  The  biological  significance  of  the 
reaction  is  here  pretty  clear — the  crying  attracts  the 
attention  of  the  mother.  It  is  a  reaction  of  helplessness, 
not  directly  accomplishing  anything,  but  serving  to 
bring  another  to  the  aid  of  the  distressed  individual. 
Not  that  the  infant  has  this  useful  end  in  view  at  the 
first ;  for  here,  as  with  the  sex  and  hunger  instincts,  the 
ultimate  end  of  the  act  is  not  presented  to  the  indi- 
vidual by  instinct.  His  impulse  is  directed  towards  an 
immediate  end,  the  biological  utility  of  which  he  does 
not  see.  Grief  remains  typically  a  passive  emotion,  as 
distinguished  from  fear  and  anger,  where  the  individual 
himself  accomplishes  something.  Grief  is  typically  the 
state  of  mind  appropriate  to  a  condition  of  affairs  where 
nothing  is  to  be  done,  and  least  by  the  grieving  indi- 
vidual. The  correlative  state  of  mind  in  one  who  can 
succor  the  grieving  person  has  been  named  the  'tender 
emotion',  and  is  best  seen  in  the  mother  with  her  baby. 
The  impulse  is  to  feed,  protect,  or  fondle  the  child;  and 
it  is  not  at  all  unlikely  that  internal  bodily  changes 
analogous  to  those  in  fear  and  anger,  though  different 
of  course,  occur  here  also. 

All  in  all,  it  appears  as  if  the  formula  developed  from 
our  rather  precise  knowledge  of  fear  and  anger  were 
probably  applicable  also  to  a  number  of  other  emotions, 
and  possibly  to  all ;  so  that  it  is  a  reasonable  theory  that 
the  emotion,  as  a  conscious  state,  represents  or  is  cor- 
relative with  (i)  the  drive  towards  a  certain  consum- 


NATIVE  EQUIPMENT  OF  MAN  59 

matory  reaction,  and  (2)  the  bodily  state  of  prepared- 
ness for  that  reaction.  It  is  clear  also  that  native  equip- 
ment provides  for  the  internal  preparation  as  well  as 
for  the  overt  reaction. 

Besides  sensations,  emotions,  and  reactions,  native 
equipment  also  includes  aptitudes  or  'gifts*  for  certain 
activities,  or  for  dealing  with  certain  classes  of  things. 
We  recognize  this  type  of  native  aptitude  when  we 
speak  of  one  person  as  having  a  natural  gift  for  music, 
another  for  mathematics,  another  for  mechanics, 
another  for  salesmanship.  No  doubt  many  such  apti- 
tudes are  complex  and  demand  analysis  at  the  hands  of 
the  psychologist;  but  it  is  equally  true  that  there  is 
something  specific  about  many  of  them,  such  that  an 
individual  who  is  gifted  in  one  direction  is  not  neces- 
sarily gifted  in  another.  It  is  not,  then,  simply  a  ques- 
tion of  native  differences  in  general  ability — though  the 
existence  of  mentally  defective  individuals  seems  to 
show  that  there  are  native  differences  in  general  ability 
— but  it  is  largely  a  question  of  native  aptitudes  of  a 
specific  sort.  We  observe  such  aptitudes  'running  in 
families',  and  'cropping  out'  in  individual  members  of 
gifted  families  separated  by  a  generation  or  more  from 
other  members  who  have  manifested  the  same  gifts. 
We  find  resemblances  between  members  of  a  family  in 
ability  to  perform  tests  of  an  unusual  sort,  but  calling 
for  specific  abilities;  and,  all  in  all,  we  cannot  escape  the 
conclusion  that  aptitudes  are  hereditary  and  form  part 
of  the  native  equipment.  They  are  often  designated  as 
'native  capacities'. 

That  there  are  native  capacities  appears  not  only  on 
comparing  one  individual  with  another,  or  one  family 


6o  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

with  another,  but  by  comparing  the  human  species  with 
animals.  Language  is  characteristically  human,  while 
finding  the  way  home  is  apparently  a  stronger  aptitude 
in  birds,  especially.  Counting  and  dealing  with  number 
relations  are  certainly  human,  as  is  the  power  of  using 
objects  as  tools. 

Native  capacities  differ  from  instincts  in  that  they  do 
not  provide  ready-made  reactions  to  stimuli.  We  do 
not  expect  the  musically  gifted  child  to  break  out  in 
song  at  some  special  stimulus,  and  thus  reveal  his  musi- 
cal gift.  We  expect  him  to  show  an  interest  in  music, 
to  learn  it  readily,  remember  it  well,  and  perhaps  show 
some  originality  in  the  way  of  making  up  pieces  for 
himself.  His  native  gift  amounts  to  a  specific  interest 
and  an  ability  to  learn  specific  things.  The  gifted  indi- 
vidual is  not  one  who  can  do  certain  things  without 
learning,  but  one  who  can  learn  those  things  very 
readily. 

There  would  be  little  profit  in  attempting  an  in- 
ventory of  this  side  of  native  equipment.  We  should 
simply  have  to  enumerate  the  various  occupations  of 
mankind,  and  the  various  classes  of  objects  in  which  he 
finds  an  interest,  and*  in  dealing  with  which  he  shows 
facility.  Undoubtedly,  a  psychological  analysis  of 
human  activities  would  be  possible,  but  thus  far  it  has 
made  so  little  progress  that  we  may  pass  it  by.  The 
analysis  of  mental  performances  which  is  traditional 
proceeds  according  to  the  abstract  form  of  the  perform- 
ance rather  than  according  to  the  subject  dealt  with — 
according  to  the  'faculties'  of  perception,  memory, 
reasoning,  imagination,  etc.  Apparently  men  differ  not 
so  much  in  respect  to  their  native  ability  to  perceive, 


NATIVE  EQUIPMENT  OF  MAN  6l 

remember,  or  reason  as  in  the  class  of  subject-matter  in 
which  they  excel.  Certainly  the  striking  instances  of 
great  ability  are  instances  of  ability  in  some  special 
field  of  things  to  be  dealt  with  rather  than  in  some 
special  faculty.  One  individual  is  bom  with  a  special 
adaptability  to  certain  aspects  of  the  world,  and 
another  with  a  special  adaptability  to  other  aspects. 

Native  equipment  may  be  conceived  as  consisting  of 
mechanisms  either  fully  formed,  as  in  the  case  of  breath- 
ing, or  growing  of  themselves  to  full  functional  condi- 
tion, as  in  the  case  of  those  instincts  that  mature  after 
birth,  or  requiring  experience  to  develop  them  to  a  func- 
tional condition  and  taking  their  precise  form  from  the 
peculiarities  of  the  individual  experience,  as  in  the  case 
of  capacities.  Some  of  these  mechanisms  are  so  simple 
and  smooth  in  their  operation  that  they  always  respond 
instantly  to  the  proper  stimulus  without  interfering  with 
the  action  of  other  mechanisms,  while  some  of  them 
cannot,  when  aroused  to  action,  reach  their  goal  at  once, 
but  remain  active  and  furnish  the  drive  for  other 
mechanisms.  In  other  words,  the  mechanism  tending 
towards  a  consummatory  reaction,  on  being  itself 
aroused,  furnishes  the  drive  for  the  mechanisms  of 
preparatory  reactions.  In  this  way,  native  equipment 
provides  drives  as  well  as  mechanisms — though  every 
drive  is  itself  a  mechanism. 

Those  native  mechanisms  that  act  as  drives  are  of 
special  importance,  since  they  are  the  prime  movers,  or 
ultimate  springs  of  action,  in  the  lives  of  men  or  ani- 
mals. The  motives  of  the  adult  are  derived  by  a  con- 
tinuous genetic  process  from  the  motive  forces  inherent 
in  his  nature.    The  process  of  development  of  derived 


62  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

or  acquired  motives  is  part  of  the  learning  process  in 
general,  and  will  receive  attention  later.  For  the 
moment,  attention  is  invited  to  the  question  of  enumera- 
tion of  the  prime  movers  of  human  action. 

This  is  the  chief  problem  attacked  by  McDougall  in 
his  Social  Psychology.  He  says,  in  the  introduction 
to  that  book: 

"The  department  of  psychology  that  is  of  primary 
importance  for  the  social  sciences  is  that  which  deals 
with  the  springs  of  human  action,  the  impulses  and 
motives  that  sustain  mental  and  bodily  activity  and 
regulate  conduct;  and  this,  of  all  the  departments  of 
psychology,  is  the  one  that  has  remained  in  the  most 
backward  state,  in  which  the  greatest  obscurity,  vague- 
ness, and  confusion  still  reign.  .  .  .  It  is  the  mental 
forces,  the  sources  of  energy,  which  set  the  ends  and  sus- 
tain the  course  of  all  human  activity — of  which  forces 
the  intellectual  processes  are  but  the  servants,  instru- 
ments, or  means — that  must  be  clearly  defined,  and 
whose  history  in  the  race  and  in  the  individual  must  be 
made  clear,  before  the  social  sciences  can  build  on  a 
firm  psychological  foundation."  ^ 

Other  quotations  from  the  book  which  reveal  its 
guiding  idea  follow. 

"The  human  mind  has  certain  innate  or  inherited 
tendencies  which  are  the  essential  springs  or  motive 
powers  of  all  thought  and  action,  whether  individual  or 
collective,  and  are  the  bases  from  which  the  character 
and  will  of  individuals  and  of  nations  are  gradually 
developed  under  the  guidance  of  the  intellectual  facul- 
ties" (p.  19). 

^  Eighth  edition,  1914,  pp.  2-3. 


NATIVE  EQUIPMENT  OF  MAN  63 

**Are,  then,  these  instinctive  impulses  the  only  motive 
powers  of  the  human  mind  to  thought  and  action? 
.  .  .  In  answer  to  this  question,  it  must  be  said  that 
in  the  developed  human  mind  there  are  springs  of  action 
of  another  class,  namely,  acquired  habits  of  thought  and 
action.  An  acquired  mode  of  activity  becomes  by 
repetition  habitual,  and  the  more  frequently  it  is  re- 
peated the  more  powerful  becomes  the  habit  as  a  source 
of  impulse  or  motive  power.  Few  habits  can  equal  in 
this  respect  the  principal  instincts;  and  habits  are  in  a 
sense  derived  from,  and  secondary  to,  instincts;  for,  in 
the  absence  of  instincts,  no  thought  and  no  action  could 
ever  be  achieved  or  repeated,  and  so  no  habits  of  thought 
or  action  could  be  formed.  Habits  are  formed  only  in 
the  service  of  the  instincts. 

"We  may  say,  then,  that  directly  or  indirectly  the 
instincts  are  the  prime  movers  of  all  human  activity; 
by  the  conative  or  impulsive  force  of  some  instinct  (or 
of  some  habit  derived  from  an  instinct),  every  train  of 
thought,  however  cold  and  passionless  it  may  seem,  is 
borne  along  towards  its  end,  and  every  bodily  activity 
is  initiated  and  sustained.  The  instinctive  impulses 
determine  the  ends  of  all  activities  and  supply  the  driv- 
ing power  by  which  all  mental  activities  are  sustained ; 
and  all  the  complex  intellectual  apparatus  of  the  most 
highly  developed  mind  is  but  a  means  towards  these 
ends,  is  but  the  instrument  by  which  these  impulses 
seek  their  satisfactions,  while  pleasure  and  pain  do  but 
serve  to  guide  them  in  their  choice  of  means. 

"Take  away  these  instinctive  dispositions  with  their 
powerful  impulses,  and  the  organism  would  become  in- 
capable of  activity  of  any  kind;  it  would  lie  inert  and 


64  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

motionless  like  a  wonderful  clockwork  whose  mainspring 
had  been  removed  or  a  steam-engine  whose  fires  had 
been  drawn"  (pp.  42-44). 

Now  if  McDougall  meant  by  'instinct'  any  native 
tendency  to  reaction,  one  would  certainly  have  to  agree 
with  him  entirely;  for  in  the  absence  of  some  such  ten- 
dency provided  by  nature,  no  stimulus  would  arouse  a 
reaction,  the  organism  would  remain  inactive  and  con- 
sequently would  have  no  means  of  learning  or  acquiring 
reactions.  But  the  insistence  on  'powerful  impulses' 
gives  us  pause,  since  it  seems  to  mean  that  in  the  ab- 
sence of  powerful  impulses  no  activity  would  occur. 
This  would  imply  a  high  degree  of  natural  inertia  in  the 
organism;  and,  in  fact,  McDougall  seems  to  mean  this, 
as  also  do  the  psychopathologists  who  have  of  late  de- 
voted great  attention  to  this  matter  of  springs  of  action, 
and  whose  conclusions  we  shall  consider  on  a  later  occa- 
sion. But  this  assumption  of  great  inertia  or  inertness  in 
the  organism,  though  it  might  perhaps  have  a  semblance 
of  truth  as  applied  to  adults,  is  rather  grotesque  when 
applied  to  children — and  it  is  to  children  above  all  that 
it  must  be  applied,  since  it  is  only  young  children  that 
are  limited  to  native  tendencies,  older  individuals  hav- 
ing developed  derived  impulses,  as  indicated  in  one  of 
the  quotations  above.  If  anything  is  characteristic  of 
children,  it  is  that  they  are  easily  aroused  to  activity. 
Watching  a  well-fed  and  well-rested  baby,  as  it  lies 
kicking  and  throwing  its  arms  about,  cooing,  looking 
here  and  there,  and  pricking  up  its  ears  (figuratively) 
at  every  sound,  one  wonders  what  is  the  nature  of  the 
'powerful  impulse'  that  initiates  and  sustains  all  this 
activity.    The  fact  is  that  the  infant  is  responsive  to  a 


NATIVE  EQUIPMENT  OF  MAN  65 

great  variety  of  stimuli,  and  that  he  is  'driven'  very 
largely  by  the  stimuli  that  reach  him  from  outside; 
though,  when  he  is  hungry,  we  see  him  driven  by  an 
inner  'powerful  impulse'  through  a  series  of  preparatory 
reactions  towards  the  consummation  of  feeding.  In  the 
play  of  older  children,  also,  it  is  difficult  to  find  a  strong 
incentive  necessary ;  almost  anything  can  be  made  play 
and  then  become  attractive  on  its  own  account.  It  is 
true,  as  a  general  proposition,  that  as  the  individual 
grows  up,  his  actions  are  more  and  more  controlled  by 
inner  drives  rather  than  by  the  immediately  present 
stimuli ;  but  even  adults  are  less  inert  than  McDougall 
seems  to  assume.  Their  activity  is  more  easily  aroused, 
and  requires  less  ulterior  motive  or  drive  than  he  sup- 
poses. 

However,  the  main  question  at  present  is  as  to  what 
are  the  'powerful  impulses'  or  'instincts',  which,  accord- 
ing to  McDougall,  furnish  the  only  motive  forces  of 
much  consequence  for  individual  and  social  activity. 
He  is  specific  on  this  point;  he  finds  quite  a  "limited 
number  of  primary  or  simple  instinctive  tendencies" 
(p.  45),  which  are  recognizable  largely  by  the  fact  that 
each  such  tendency  has  a  well-defined  emotion  as  an 
integral  part  of  it.    His  list  is  as  follows : 

Fear  with  its  impulse  to  flee  (or  more  generally,  to 

escape). 
Disgust  with  its  impulse  of  repulsion, 
Curiosity, 

Anger  with  its  impulse  to  fight. 
Self-assertion, 
Submission, 


66  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

The  parental  instinct,  with  its  emotion  of  tender- 
ness and  its  impulse  to  protect,  etc., 

The  reproductive  instinct, 

Hunger, 

The  gregarious  instinct. 

The  collecting  or  acquisitive  instinct. 

The  instinct  of  construction. 

"A  number  of  minor  instincts,  such  as  those  that 
prompt  to  crawling  and  walking." 

"Some  general  or  non-specific  innate  tendencies," 
namely,  the  tendency  to  imitate,  the  tendency  to  repro- 
duce in  ourselves  an  emotion  which  we  see  another 
expressing,  the  tendency  to  receive  suggestions  (sug- 
gestibility), the  tendency  to  play,  the  tendency  to  form 
habits  and  to  prefer  the  familiar  to  the  unfamiliar. 

If  this  inventory  should  be  criticized  on  the  ground 
that  it  omitted  some  important  tendency — if,  for  exam- 
ple, one  should  urge  that  the  laughter  impulse  deserved 
mention  in  view  of  the  obvious  instinctiveness  of  the 
act,  in  view  of  the  strong  attendant  emotion  of  mirth  or 
amusement,  and  in  view  of  the  considerable  amount 
of  activity  derived  from  this  impulse,  McDougall  could 
well  answer  that  undoubtedly  his  list  would  require 
revision  in  detail,  but  that  such  criticism  left  the  main 
principle  untouched.  But  if  we  inquire  whether 
McDougall  could  be  induced  to  include  what  we  have 
called  native  capacities  in  his  list  of  instincts,  we  readily 
assure  ourselves  that  he  would  not.  To  include  them 
would  lie  quite  outside  of  his  scheme.  They  belong 
rather  with  those  intellectual  processes  which  he  as- 
serts to  be  the  servants  of  the  instinctive  impulses,  to 
be,  in  short,  mechanisms  requiring  drive,  and  not  by 


NATIVE  EQUIPMENT  OF  MAN  67 

any  means  drives  themselves.  This  is  the  chief  point 
at  which  the  present  discussion  takes  issue  with 
McDougall — indeed,  disagreement  on  this  point  is  the 
chief  element  of  contention  in  this  whole  book.  The 
great  aim  of  the  book  is,  that  is  to  say,  to  attempt  to 
show  that  any  mechanism — except  perhaps  some  of  the 
most  rudimentary  that  give  the  simple  reflexes — once  it 
is  aroused,  is  capable  of  furnishing  its  own  drive  and 
also  of  lending  drive  to  other  connected  mechanisms. 
The  question  is,  whether  the  mechanisms  for  the 
thousand  and  one  things  which  the  human  individual 
has  the  capacity  to  do  are  themselves  wholly  passive, 
requiring  the  drive  of  these  few  instincts,  or  whether 
each  such  mechanism  can  be  directly  aroused  and  con- 
tinue in  action  without  assistance  from  hunger,  sex, 
self-assertion,  curiosity,  and  the  rest.  Now,  of  course,  it 
must  be  admitted  that  sometimes  the  instincts  furnish 
drive  for  other  mechanisms.  With  respect  to  activities 
of  the  more  intellectual  sort,  drive  comes  especially 
from  such  instincts  as  those  of  self-assertion,  curiosity, 
and  construction.  The  child  can  be  spurred  on  to  in- 
dustry in  his  studies  by  appealing  to  his  self-feeling,  as 
by  pitting  one  child  against  another,  or  by  urging  him 
to  show  that  he  is  'man  enough'  to  accomplish  a  certain 
task.  Similarly,  his  curiosity  or  his  natural  impulse  to 
manipulate  and  make  things  can  be  played  upon  in  the 
interests  of  getting  him  to  accornplish  some  task.  This 
is  true,  and  yet  it  is  also  true  that  such  motives  are 
likely  not  to  carry  the  child  very  far  in  a  line  where  he 
finds  nothing  intrinsically  interesting  to  himself.  For 
example,  a  child  may  be  induced  by  such  means  to  make 
a  start  in  learning  to  sing,  but,  unless  he  has  a  natural 


68  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

musical  gift,  he  drops  out  soon,  and  parries  the  appeal  to 
his  self -feeling  by  deriding  singing  and  those  children 
who  excel  him.  He  finds  some  way  of  making  this  exer- 
cise appear  unworthy  of  his  effort,  whereas  the  musical 
child,  once  started  by  the  appeal  to  his  self-feeling,  is 
carried  along  by  zeal  for  music  itself,  and  puts  forth 
great  energy  without  requiring  such  extraneous  stimuli 
to  be  constantly  applied. 

It  is  the  same  way  with  curiosity  as  a  motive.  Un- 
doubtedly, curiosity  may  be  aroused  in  the  child  about 
a  great  many  things  that  are  new  to  him.  All  normal 
children  may  thus  be  got  to  make  a  start  in  the  study 
of  plants  or  numbers  or  words.  But  one  child  then 
evinces  an  interest  in  one  particular  subject  matter, 
and  another  child  not,  though  he  may  show  interest  in 
another  sort  of  thing.  One  child  will  go  far  in  a  certain 
subject  with  very  little  prodding,  while  another  child 
can  only  be  brought  forward  by  constant  attention  from 
above.  Yet  this  second  child  may  later  prove  to  have 
good  abilities  in  some  other  line,  and  do  much  in  it  of 
his  own  initiative.  When  the  matter  of  special  abilities 
of  individuals  is  subjected  to  exact  study,  it  is  found  that 
specialization  of  capacity  is  a  real  fact.  To  be  sure,  a 
child  who  shows  ability  in  one  line  is  rather  apt  to  show 
some  ability  in  any  other  line  that  you  may  select  for 
examination ;  yet  he  is  almost  certain  to  have  his  forte 
at  some  one  point,  and  not  to  be  equally  gifted  in  all 
directions.  The  likelihood  of  finding  a  child  who  does 
well  in  one  thing  doing  well  also  in  other  things  might  be 
laid  to  such  general  factors  as  curiosity  or  self-assertion, 
as  well  as  to  general  retentiveness  or  general  tempera- 
mental factors;  but  the  specialization  of  gifts  which 


NATIVE  EQUIPMENT  OF  MAN  69 

also  IS  In  evidence  cannot  be  explained  by  such  general 
factors.  This  specialization  requires  us,  at  the  very 
least,  to  conclude  to  the  existence  of  specialized  capa- 
cities. The  only  question  that  could  possibly  be  raised 
is  as  to  whether  these  capacities  are  anything  more  than 
mechanisms.  It  might  perhaps  be  the  case  that  general 
factors,  such  as  curiosity,  furnished  all  the  drive,  but 
that  this  drive  had  most  result  where  it  found  good 
mechanisms.  According  to  such  a  view,  the  industry 
displayed  by  a  certain  child  in  number  work  would  be 
derived  from  curiosity,  self-assertion,  or  other  general 
motives  that  were  aroused,  his  success  being  due  to  his 
possession  of  extra  good  mechanisms  for  dealing  with 
numbers;  while  the  industry  of  another  child  in  music 
would  be  due  to  the  general  motives  of  self-assertion, 
constructiveness,  etc.,  and  the  special  direction  taken 
by  the  resulting  activity  in  this  child  would  be  due  to 
good  mechanisms  for  appreciating  and  performing 
music.  Can  any  objection  be  raised  to  this  way  of  con- 
ceiving the  matter? 

Well,  there  is  one  fact  still  unaccounted  for,  and  that 
is  the  absorption  of  the  child  in  the  subject-matter  for 
which  he  has  a  special  gift.  This  state  of  absorption, 
whether  in  the  child  or  in  the  adult,  is  worthy  of  our 
attention  in  connection  with  the  matter  of  drive ;  for  it 
certainly  appears  that  the  person  who  is  absorbed  in  his 
task  is  being  carried  along  by  the  interest  of  that  par- 
ticular task.  Absorption  means  that  attention  is  wholly 
directed  upon  the  matter  in  hand,  and  that  it  continues 
so  directed.  On  the  face  of  it,  certainly,  there  is  no 
outside  motive  carrying  the  activity  along.  Where 
outside  motives  are  necessary,   we  cannot  speak  of 


70  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

absorption;  we  then  see  a  constant  tendency  to  break 
away  from  the  matter  in  hand,  and  a  being  brought  back 
to  it  by  the  extraneous  motive.  This  is  the  famihar 
process  of  Voluntary  attention'.  The  individual  has  to 
force  himself  to  attend  to  something,  either  because  it 
is  not  itself  interesting,  or  because  some  other,  more 
interesting  object  claims  the  attention  and  has  to  be 
resisted  by  voluntary  effort.  We  all  know  this  condi- 
tion of  voluntary  attention ;  and  we  know  that  it  is  very 
different  from  genuine  absorption.  Also  we  know  that 
very  little  can  be  accomplished  in  such  a  task  as  reading 
or  study,  so  long  as  the  attention  to  it  remains  volun- 
tary. To  accomplish  anything  in  such  a  task,  we  must 
get  really  into  the  subject,  absorbed  in  it,  finding  it 
interesting  and  being  carried  along  by  the  interest  of  it. 
Often  voluntary  effort  is  needed  in  order  to  get  a  task 
started,  to  overcome  repugnance,  inertia,  and  distract- 
ing influences.  The  extraneous  motive  brings  the  horse 
to  the  water,  but  real  drinking  does  not  occur  except 
from  thirst,  that  is  to  say,  from  a  desire  for  the  par- 
ticular results  obtained  by  the  activity  in  progress. 
As  a  general  proposition,  we  may  say  that  the  drive 
that  carries  forward  any  activity,  when  it  is  running 
freely  and  effectively,  is  inherent  in  that  activity.  It  is 
only  when  an  activity  is  running  by  its  own  drive  that 
it  can  run  thus  freely  and  effectively ;  for  as  long  as  it  is 
being  driven  by  some  extrinsic  motive,  it  is  subject  to 
the  distraction  of  that  motive.  Thus,  though  self- 
assertion,  rivalry,  etc.,  are  undoubtedly  strong  motives 
for  arousing  activity,  nothing  worth  while  is  accom- 
plished by  the  individual  who  remains  self-conscious, 
and  nothing  is  accomplished,  except  in  the  simplest  sort 


NATIVE  EQUIPMENT  OF  MAN  71 

of  activities,  by  the  person  who  keeps  the  rivalry  atti- 
tude constantly.  We  all  know  this  type  of  behavior, 
where  the  interest  of  the  performer  is  in  himself  and  not 
in  the  work.  One  who  has  thoroughly  prepared  for 
a  public  performance  of  some  sort,  may  break  down  in 
the  performance  because  of  inability  to  get  away  from 
the  desire  to  do  his  best  in  the  presence  of  all  these  spec- 
tators, this  self-consciousness  making  impossible  a 
direct  application  of  his  energies  to  the  work  in  hand. 
The  motive  that  originally  induced  him  to  go  in  for 
this  event  may  very  well  have  been  a  desire  to  distin- 
guish himself;  but  this  motive  has  to  drop  out  of  sight 
or  else  by  its  distraction  spoil  the  performance.  It  is 
not  true,  then,  that  the  motive  that  initiates  a  given 
activity  furnishes  the  motive  force  for  the  whole  activ- 
ity; it  simply  leads  the  performer  up  to  the  act,  but  the 
motive  force  for  the  act  itself  must  be  inherent.  In 
short,  you  simply  must  take  as  your  immediate  aim  the 
accomplishment  of  the  particular  act  before  you.  If 
you  are  to  accomplish  a  given  result,  you  must  aim  at 
that  result,  and,  for  the  moment,  must  get  interested  in 
that  result  for  its  own  sake.  You  will  never  get  any- 
where in  the  particular  activity  by  virtue  of  your  gen- 
eral tendencies.  This  is  notably  true  of  continued  and 
complex  systems  of  activity,  such  as  most  human  activ- 
ities become.  Unless  you  get  up  an  interest  in  a  system 
of  activities  you  can  accomplish  nothing  in  it.  Extra- 
neous motives  may  bring  you  to  the  door  of  a  system  of 
activities,  but,  once  inside,  you  must  drop  everything 
extraneous. 

McDougall's  principle,  therefore,  "that  the  original 
impulse  or  conation  supplies  the  motive  power  to  all 


72  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

the  activities  that  are  but  means  to  the  attainment  of 
the  desired  end,"  would  make  a  very  bad  guide  in  edu- 
cation or  in  any  attempt  to  control  and  influence  the 
behavior  of  men.  It  would  lead  the  teacher  to  introduce 
extraneous  motives  at  every  turn  and  leave  out  of  ac- 
count the  interest  which  might  be  generated  in  the  sub- 
ject matter.  It  would  lead  the  manager  of  a  business  to 
conclude,  since  the  employes  are  certainly  there  for  the 
prime  purpose  of  earning  money,  that  it  would  be  hope- 
less to  generate  in  them  any  loyalty  and  enthusiasm  for 
the  concern  or  any  interest  in  the  technique  of  its  proc- 
esses. This  principle  would  also  make  a  very  bad  guide 
in  understanding  the  motives  of  men ;  for,  according  to 
it,  we  simply  have  to  discover  the  motive  that  led  the 
individual  originally  to  such  and  such  a  line  of  activity, 
and  then  we  know  the  motive  for  his  every  act  within 
that  line.  He,  for  example,  chooses  teaching  as  his 
livelihood,  and  therefore  each  of  his  acts  is  driven  by 
the  economic  motive ;  his  apparent  interest  in  his  pupils 
and  in  his  subject  are  illusions.  McDougall  seems  to 
recognize  the  inadequacy  of  his  guiding  principle  in 
one  or  two  passages,  as  when  he  says  (p.  349)  that  an 
act,  originally  undertaken  simply  as  a  means  to  some 
further  end,  becomes  to  the  individual  an  end  in  itself. 
"Nothing  is  commoner  than  that  the  earning  of  money, 
at  first  undertaken  purely  as  a  means  to  an  end,  be- 
comes an  end  in  itself."  This  is  certainly  true,  and  it 
is  still  truer  that  an  accountant  becomes  interested  in 
his  accounting,  the  designer  in  his  designing,  and  every 
one  who  has  a  decent  job  in  the  work  of  his  job  without 
constant  regard  to  the  pay  envelope.  McDougall  would 
perhaps  reply  that  he  has  sufficiently  allowed  for  all  this 


NATIVE  EQUIPMENT  OF  MAN  73 

sort  of  thing  in  recognizing  the  importance  of  habic  as  a 
driving  force — the  accountant  has  become  habituated  to 
his  accounting,  and  momentum  keeps  him  going  in  that 
Hne.  This,  however,  does  not  explain  the  learning  of 
a  trade  or  profession.  It  cannot  be  learned  without  get- 
ting interested  in  it  directly  and  on  its  own  account. 
So,  in  the  process  of  learning  typewriting,  it  has  been 
found  that  progress  beyond  a  certain  low  level  does  not 
come  automatically,  nor  by  virtue  simply  of  great 
voluntary  effort,  but  only  by  getting  completely  ab- 
sorbed in  the  work  of  typewriting  itself.  What  a  dull 
world,  after  all,  it  would  be  if  things  had  no  interest  in 
themselves,  but  only  as  they  appealed  to  some  one  of  the 
primary  instincts  or  a  derivative  from  them! — if,  with 
all  our  human  capacities  for  dealing  with  things,  we 
remained,  as  regards  interest,  at  the  level  of  the  ani- 
mals, with  perhaps  a  more  mobile  curiosity,  a  greater 
tendency  to  manipulation  and  construction,  and  a 
stronger  dose  of  self-assertiveness !  It  would  certainly 
be  unbearable  to  spend  so  much  of  our  time  in  multi- 
farious labors  with  things  that  offered  no  attraction  of 
their  own,  but  were  dealt  with  simply  as  means  to  a 
few  remote  ends.  A  man's  whole  working  day  would  be 
occupied  with  uninteresting  things.  To  be  sure,  modern 
division  of  labor  in  some  of  the  lines  of  manufacture 
has  gone  far  to  reduce  the  labor  of  the  individual  worker 
to  so  bare  a  routine  that  he  can  scarcely  take  an  interest 
in  it;  but  this  is  recognized  as  a  defect  in  the  present 
industrial  system.  According  to  McDougall's  principle, 
it  would  be  no  defect,  since  it  does  not  in  the  least  do 
away  with  the  economic  motive  that  leads  men  origi- 
nally into  industry.  Human  life  would  certainly  be  bare 


74  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

and  dull  if,  along  with  the  vast  human  capacity  in  the 
way  of  mechanisms  for  acting,  there  were  no  corre- 
sponding increase  in  interests.  The  result  of  such  a 
disproportion  would  be  that  we  should  only  seldom  be 
working  for  an  end  that  directly  attracted  us;  almost 
all  of  our  activity  would  be  of  the  nature  of  drudgery, 
requiring  outside  drive  to  keep  it  going. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  human  interests  keep  pace  with 
human  capacities.  Almost  always,  where  a  child  dis- 
plays talent,  he  also  displays  interest.  It  might  not  be 
amiss  to  extend  McDougall's  conception  of  the  connec- 
tion of  instincts  and  emotions  so  as  to  speak  of  a  native 
interest  as  the  affective  side  of  a  native  capacity.  Along 
with  the  capacity  for  music  goes  the  musical  interest; 
along  with  the  capacity  for  handling  numerical  relations 
goes  an  interest  in  ;iumbers ;  along  with  the  capacity  for 
mechanical  devices  goes  the  interest  in  mechanics; 
along  with  the  capacity  for  language  goes  the  interest 
in  learning  'to  speak ;  and  so  on  through  the  list  of  capa- 
cities, both  those  that  are  generally  present  in  all  men 
and  those  that  are  strong  only  in  the  exceptional  indi- 
vidual. From  the  introspective  side,  an  interest  is 
somewhat  similar  to  an  emotion;  from  the  side  of 
behavior,  it  is  a  drive  towards  activity  of  the  capacity 
to  which  it  is  attached. 

The  instincts  are  adaptations  to  very  general  features 
of  the  environment,  while  the  capacities  are  adaptations 
to  more  special  features.  Curiosity,  for  example,  is  a 
native  adaptation  to  an  environment  that  changes  and 
continually  presents  something  new;  its  behavior  con- 
sists in  the  exploration  of  what  is  new.  The  capacity  for 
perceiving  number  relations  is  an  adaptation  to  a  more 


NATIVE  EQUIPMENT  OF  MAN  75 

special  feature  of  the  environment ;  its  behavior  consists 
in  counting,  adding,  subtracting,  and  performing  more 
complicated  arithmetical  operations.  This  number  be- 
havior is  scarcely  present  in  animals;  it  represents  a 
specialized  adaptation  that  is  characteristically  human. 
Now  there  is  no  obvious  reason  in  the  nature  of  things 
why  the  more  general  adaptations  should  have  the  char- 
acter of  drives  while  the  more  specialized  adaptations 
should  exist  simply  as  passive  mechanisms.  There  is 
no  obvious  reason  why  this  should  be  so,  and  there  is 
no  evidence  that  It  is  so,  the  evidence  from  the  special- 
ized activities  of  men  and  from  their  power  to  become 
absorbed  in  these  activities  being  quite  to  the  contrary. 
We  are  justified,  therefore,  in  concluding  that  the 
native  capacities  are  essentially  in  the  same  position 
as  the  instincts  as  regards  this  matter  of  drive.  The 
native  capacities  are  mechanisms  that  are,  in  the  first 
place,  readily  aroused  to  activity,  and  that  therefore 
require  little  stimulus  to  start  them  going;  and  in  the 
second  place,  once  they  are  aroused,  they,  like  the  in- 
stincts, tend  to  remain  active  and  to  act  as  driving 
forces  also  for  other  related  mechanisms  that  at  the 
moment  are  not  otherwise  activated. 

The  system  of  native  human  motives  Is  thus  much 
broader  and  more  adequate  to  the  specialization  of 
human  behavior  than  McDougall's  conception  would 
allow.  It  Is  especially  the  objective  Interests  that  are 
thus  provided  for — the  Interest  in  color,  form,  tone, 
number,  spatial  arrangement,  mechanical  effect,  plants 
and  animals  and  human  beings.  It  Is  not  so  much 
the  intellectual  activities  in  the  abstract — reasoning, 
imagination,  memory,  and  the  rest — that  interest  us, 


76  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

as  the  different  classes  of  object  that  appeal  to  our 
natural  capacities.  The  world  is  interesting,  not  simply 
because  it  affords  us  food  and  shelter  and  stimuli  for 
all  our  primal  instincts,  but  because  we  contain  within 
ourselves  adaptations  to  many  of  its  objective  charac- 
teristics and  are  easily  aroused  to  interesting  and  sat- 
isfying activity  in  dealing  with  these  characteristics. 
The  field  of  human  motives  is  as  broad  as  the  world  that 
man  can  deal  with  and  understand. 


IV 

ACQUIRED  OR  LEARNED  EQUIPMENT 

Extensive  as  is  the  native  equipment  of  man,  with  its 
manifold  sensations  and  emotions,  movements  and  in- 
terests, it  would  bulk  rather  small,  numerically,  in  an 
inventory  of  the  whole  equipment  of  the  adult.  Seldom, 
except  in  the  internal  workings  of  the  body,  does  one 
perform  a  purely  instinctive  act.  Previous  learning  has 
usually  come  in  and  given  modified  forms  of  behavior. 
We  act  as  we  have  learned  to  act,  see  what  we  have 
learned  to  see,  are  interested  in  what  we  have  learned 
to  be  interested  in,  enjoy  what  we  have  learned  to  enjoy, 
and  dislike  what  or  whom  we  have  learned  to  dislike. 
Yet  it  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  the 
adult  had  'scrapped'  his  native  equipment — except  in 
relation  to  digestion  and  similar  internal  processes — 
and  built  up  for  himself  an  entirely  new  outfit,  by  means 
of  which  he  carried  on  his  rational  adult  activities.  The 
native  equipment,  or  much  of  it,  remains  in  use  and  is 
built  up  into  the  more  complex  and  specialized  mech- 
anisms of  learned  activity. 

Laughing — to  take  a  clear  case — is  a  movement  that 
does  not  have  to  be  learned.  Though  the  child  does  not 
laugh  for  several  months  after  birth,  he  comes  naturally 
to  laugh,  when  he  has  developed  to  a  certain  point. 
First  he  begins  to  smile,  and  a  little  later  surprises  and 
delights  his  mother  by  laughing  aloud.  He  does  this 
before  he  shows  any  signs  of  imitating  the  actions  of 


78  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

others,  and  evidently  does  not  learn  to  laugh,  but  comes 
to  it  naturally.  Throughout  life,  laughing  is  involun- 
tary, and  few  persons  are  able  to  get  a  real  laugh  except 
when  they  are  genuinely  amused.  Thus  the  motor  side 
of  laughter  is  provided  by  native  equipment,  and  re- 
mains an  instinctive  act,  aside  from  certain  refinements 
that  may  be  introduced,  and  a  certain  moderation 
or  complete  suppression  that  may  be  imposed  by 
propriety. 

But  when  we  ask  what  it  is  that  arouses  laughter,  we 
see  at  once  that  this  side  of  the  matter  is  not  wholly 
provided  by  nature.  The  situation  that  provokes  mirth 
in  the  adult  has  no  power  to  do  so  in  the  child,  while  the 
situations  that  make  the  young  child  laugh  lose  the 
power  to  do  so  as  the  child  grows  up.  And  one  man 
laughs  heartily  at  a  joke  that  has  no  such  effect  on 
another.  What  causes  great  hilarity  in  one  social  group 
may  be  tame,  or  trite,  or  shocking,  or  simply  baffling, 
in  other  circles.  Each  nation  develops  to  some  degree 
a  set  of  laughter-stimuli  peculiar  to  it,  and,  finding 
other  nations  unresponsive  to  its  own  particular  form 
of  wit,  judges  them  to  be  lacking  in  a  sense  of  humor. 
The  English  speak  of  'easy  jokes  for  Scotch  readers'; 
the  Americans  maintain  that  the  Englishman  cannot 
see  a  joke;  and  the  German,  in  Mark  Twain's  story, 
complained  that  the  choice  specimen  of  American  wit 
that  was  offered  him  was  'no  joke  but  a  lie'.  Exaggera- 
tions or  puns  are  not  appreciated  without  training; 
they  did  not  have  the  power  originally  of  evoking 
laughter,  but  have  gained  this  power,  with  many  people, 
through  the  effect  of  experience.  The  motor  act  of 
laughing,  then,  is  provided  by  native  equipment,  but 


ACQUIRED  OR  LEARNED  EQUIPMENT  79 

its  attachments  to  the  stimuli  that  provoke  it  in  adults 
have  been  acquired. 

Amusing  situations  are  of  such  variety  that  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  find  anything  common  to  them  all  which  could  be 
assigned  as  the  essential  mirth-arousing  factor.  At- 
tempts to  find  such  a  common  factor  are  however  in 
existence  under  the  name  of  theories  of  humor.  One  of 
the  most  noteworthy  of  these  was  early  formulated  by 
Hobbes  {Leviathan,  Chapter  VI)  in  the  following  terms: 

"  'Sudden  glory'  " — by  which  he  means  sudden  self- 
glorification — "is  the  passion  which  maketh  those 
'grimaces'  called  'laughter';  and  is  caused  either  by 
some  sudden  act  of  their  own,  that  pleaseth  them;  or  by 
the  apprehension  of  some  deformed  thing  in  another, 
by  comparison  whereof  they  suddenly  applaud  them- 
selves. And  it  is  incident  most  to  them,  that  are  con- 
scious of  the  fewest  abilities  in  themselves;  who  are 
forced  to  keep  themselves  in  their  own  favor,  by  observ- 
ing the  imperfections  of  other  men." 

Evidently,  Hobbes  is  rather  cynical  in  regard  to 
laughter;  and  his  theory  is  typical  of  most  theories  of 
humor,  in  that  they  seem  like  the  work  of  individuals 
who  are  not  themselves  addicted  to  humor.  They  give 
the  impression  of  being  the  attempts  of  those  who  can- 
not see  the  joke  to  explain  what  other  people  are  laugh- 
ing at.  Still  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  element  of 
suddenness,  insisted  on  by  Hobbes,  is  generally  essential 
in  a  mirth-provoker;  and  the  other  element  in  his  con- 
ception, the  sense  of  superiority  to  others,  can  actually 
be  found  in  a  surprisingly  large  proportion  of  specimens 
of  wit  and  humor.  The  practical  joke,  about  the  most 
effective  stimulus  to  laughter  with  the  untutored  man, 


8o  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

puts  some  one  in  a  position  of  temporary  inferiority,  and 
is  not  usually  appreciated  by  the  victim;  and  many 
jokes  of  a  more  intellectual  sort  also  have  an  analogous 
element  of  maliciousness.  On  the  other  side,  we  have 
the  fact  that  inferiority  in  another  person  may  awaken 
pity  or  disgust,  instead  of  laughter.  Similar  exceptions 
can  be  found  to  the  other  theories  that  have  been  put 
forward,  as  for  example  that  which  holds  the  mirth- 
producer  to  be  an  incongruity  between  two  elements  in 
a  situation,  or  between  expectation  and  realization. 

The  great  objection,  however,  to  all  existing  theories 
of  humor  is  that  they  are  not  genetic,  or,  at  least,  not 
based  on  knowledge  of  the  genesis  of  the  sense  of  humor 
in  the  individual.  We  ought,  first  of  all,  to  discover 
what  is  the  stimulus  that  naturally  arouses  smiling  and 
laughing  in  the  infant — it  can  scarcely  be  a  sense  of  his 
own  superiority — and  to  trace  out  the  succession  of 
stimuli  that  get  the  power  to  amuse  him  as  he  grows 
older.  Perhaps  a  common  element  could  thus  be  dis- 
covered in  all  the  stimuli  and  shown  to  be  the  essen- 
tial element;  though  this  is  by  no  means  certain,  since 
the  association  of  a  given  type  of  situation  with  amuse- 
ment might  depend  on  accidents  of  the  individual's 
history  rather  than  on  any  inherent  likeness  between 
this  situation  and  the  natural  stimulus  to  laughter. 
We  do  not  know  the  natural  history  of  laughter  well 
enough  as  yet  to  give  a  satisfactory  theory.  But  so 
much  as  this  is  pretty  certain,  that,  while  we  laugh  by 
nature,  we  learn  what  to  laugh  at. 

The  same  can  be  asserted  of  grief,  fear,  or  anger. 
The  motor  side  of  each  is  provided  by  native  equip- 
ment, but  the  stimuli  that  evoke  these  reactions  change 


ACQUIRED  OR  LEARNED  EQUIPMENT  8l 

with  experience,  and  their  connections  with  the  reac- 
tions are  learned  or  acquired  by  the  individual.  This  is 
generally  true  of  emotions  and  their  appropriate  acts. 

The  attachment  of  a  natural  reaction  to  a  stimulus 
that  is  not  its  natural  stimulus  can  be  observed  in  much 
simpler  cases  than  these  of  the  complex  emotions. 
Many  instances  can  be  observed  in  animals,  such  as  the 
following  from  Spaulding.^  A  hermit  crab  was  kept  in 
an  oblong  aquarium,  one  end  of  which  could  be  dark- 
ened, leaving  the  other  end  light.  The  crab  instinct- 
ively kept  out  of  the  dark  end,  but  would  go  there  when 
food  was  placed  there,  being  attracted  by  effluvia  of  the 
food  substance  coming  through  the  water.  After  being 
repeatedly  fed  in  this  way,  the  crab  would  go  to  the 
darkened  portion  of  the  aquarium,  even  when  no  food 
was  placed  there.  Thus  the  food-seeking  reaction  had 
become  attached  to  the  darkening  as  a  stimulus.  The 
experiment  was  carried  further  by  placing  a  wire  screen, 
with  a  hole  through  it,  between  the  crab  and  the  food. 
The  crab  not  only  learned  the  way  through  the  screen, 
but  after  awhile  reacted  to  the  screen  as  a  stimulus, 
going  behind  it  as  soon  as  it  was  placed  in  position,  even 
without  the  presence  of  food.  The  screen,  not  itself  an 
original  arouser  of  the  food-seeking  reaction,  came  by 
'association*,  as  the  phrase  runs,  to  have  the  power  of 
arousing  it. 

In  the  same  way,  the  sight  of  food,  though  having 
no  original  power  to  excite  the  flow  of  saliva,  comes  from 
frequent  association  with  the  taste  of  food,  which  has 
this  power,  to  have  the  power  itself.  Even  the  name  of 
a  food  may  produce  the  same  result.    Evidently  there  is 

1  Journ.  of  Comp.  Neurol,  and  Psychol.,  1904,  XIV,  49. 


82  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

no  inherent  likeness  between  the  sound  of  the  word 
'beefsteak'  and  the  taste  of  beefsteak;  and  this  case 
illustrates  in  a  different  field  what  was  said  a  moment 
ago,  to  the  effect  that  the  various  mirth-producers  (like 
the  various  saliva-exciters)  need  not  have  more  than 
an  accidental  or  historical  community. 

The  case  of  the  flow  of  saliva  has  been  worked  out 
with  experimental  precision  by  the  Russian  physiologist 
Pawlow.  A  substance  which  naturally  arouses  this 
reflex  was  introduced  into  a  dog's  mouth,  and  simul- 
taneously a  bell  was  rung.  After  this  had  been  repeated 
a  number  of  times,  the  bell,  without  the  tasting  sub- 
stance, gave  the  reaction.  Pawlow  called  a  reflex  thus 
aroused  by  some  other  than  its  natural  stimulus  a 
'conditioned  reflex'.  Other  reflexes  can  be  similarly 
'conditioned',  or  associated  to  stimuli  that  have  no 
power  to  evoke  them  apart  from  their  having  occurred 
concomitantly  with  the  natural  stimulus.  Such  second- 
ary or  artificial  connections  may  be  only  temporary, 
or  may  become  permanent  in  the  individual.  Many 
fears,  aversions,  likes  and  dislikes  are  undoubtedly  con- 
ditioned reflexes,  and  this  type  of  learning  accounts  for 
a  large  proportion  of  our  acquired  equipment.  It 
enables  us  to  utilize  our  native  stock  of  movements  in 
accordance  with  the  special  conditions  in  which  we  grow 
up.  It  does  not  account  for  the  addition  of  learned 
actions  to  the  native  stock,  but  for  the  linking  of  natural 
actions  to  new  stimuli. 

In  view  of  the  importance  that  the  very  modern  conception  of  the 
conditioned  reflex  is  taking  in  discussions  of  learning,  it  is  interesting  to 
recall  that  Locke,  in  his  chapter,  'Of  the  Association  of  Ideas',  has  in 
mind  very  much  the  same  sort  of  thing.  He  does  not  employ  'associa- 
tion' so  widely  as  his  successors  in  the  associationist  school,  but  uses  it 


ACQUIRED  OR  LEARNED  EQUIPMENT  83 

especially:  to  explain  irrational  connections  of  ideas.  He  says  (Essay 
Concerning  Human  Understanding,  Book  II,  Chapter  33): 

"Some  of  our  ideas  have  a  natural  correspondence  and  connexion 
one  with  another;  it  is  the  office  and  excellency  of  our  reason  to  trace 
these,  and  hold  them  together  in  that  union  and  correspondence  which 
is  founded  on  their  peculiar  beings.  Besides  this,  there  is  another  con- 
nexion of  ideas  wholly  owing  to  chance  or  custom:  ideas,  that  in  them- 
selves are  not  at  all  of  kin,  come  to  be  so  united  in  some  men's  minds, 
that  it  is  very  hard  to  separate  them  .  .  .  To  this,  perhaps,  might  be 
justly  attributed  most  of  the  sympathies  and  antipathies  observable  in 
men,  which  work  as  strongly,  and  produce  as  regular  effects  as  if  they 
were  natural,  and  are  therefore  called  so,  though  they  at  first  had  no 
other  original  but  the  accidental  connexion  of  two  ideas,  which  either 
the  strength  of  the  impression,  or  future  indulgence  so  united,  that  they 
always  afterward  kept  company  in  that  man's  mind,  as  if  they  were  but 
one  idea.  I  say  most  of  the  antipathies,  I  do  not  say  all,  for  some  of 
them  are  truly  natural,  depend  upon  our  original  constitution,  and  are 
born  with  us;  but  a  great  part  of  those,  which  are  counted  natural, 
would  have  been  known  to  be  from  unheeded,  though,  perhaps,  early 
impressions,  or  wanton  fancies  at  first,  which  would  have  been  acknowl- 
edged the  original  of  them,  if  they  had  been  warily  observed.  A  grown 
person  surfeiting  with  honey,  no  sooner  hears  the  name  of  it,  but  his 
fancy  immediately  carries  sickness  and  qualms  to  his  stomach,  and  he 
cannot  bear  the  very  idea  of  it ;  other  ideas  of  dislike,  and  sickness,  and 
vomiting,  presently  accompany  it,  and  he  is  disturbed,  but  he  knows 
from  whence  to  date  this  weakness,  and  can  tell  how  he  got  this  indis- 
position. Had  this  happened  to  him  by  an  overdose  of  honey,  when  a 
child,  all  the  same  effects  would  have  followed,  but  the  cause  would 
have  been  mistaken,  and  the  antipathy  counted  natural.     ,     .     . 

''Instances.  The  ideas  of  goblins  and  sprites  have  really  no  more 
to  do  with  darkness  than  light;  yet  let  but  a  foolish  maid  inculcate  these 
often  on  the  mind  of  a  child,  and  raise  them  there  together,  possibly  he 
shall  never  be  able  to  separate  them  again  so  long  as  he  lives;  but  dark- 
ness shall  forever  afterward  bring  with  it  those  frightful  ideas,  and  they 
shall  be  so  joined  that  he  can  no  more  bear  the  one  than  the  other. 

"A  man  receives  a  sensible  injury  from  another,  thinks  on  the  man 
and  that  action  over  and  over;  and  by  ruminating  on  them  strongly,  or 
much  in  his  mind,  so  cements  these  two  ideas  together,  that  he  makes 
them  almost  one;  never  thinks  on  the  man,  but  the  pain  and  displeasure 
he  suffered  come  into  his  mind  with  it,  so  that  he  scarce  distinguishes 
them,  but  has  as  much  an  aversion  for  the  one  as  the  other.     Thus 


84  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

hatreds  are  often  begotten  from  slight  and  almost  innocent  occasions, 
and  quarrels  propagated  and  continued  in  the  world. 

"A  man  has  suffered  pain  or  sickness  in  any  place;  .  .  .  though 
these  have  in  nature  nothing  to  do  one  with  another,  yet  when  the  idea 
of  the  place  occurs  to  his  mind,  it  brings  (the  impression  being  once 
made)  that  of  the  pain  and  displeasure  with  it;  he  confounds  them  in 
his  mind,  and  can  as  little  bear  the  one  as  the  other.  .     .     . 

"Many  children  imputing  the  pain  they  endured  at  school  to  their 
books  they  were  corrected  for,  so  join  these  ideas  together,  that  a  book 
becomes  their  aversion.  .  .  .  There  are  rooms  convenient  enough, 
that  some  men  cannot  study  in,  and  fashions  of  vessels,  which,  though 
ever  so  clean  and  commodious,  they  cannot  drink  out  of,  and  that  by 
reason  of  some  accidental  ideas  which  are  annexed  to  them,  and  make 
them  offensive.  .     .     . 

"Some  such  wrong  and  unnatural  combinations  of  ideas  will  be  found 
to  establish  the  irreconcilable  opposition  between  different  sects  of 
philosophy  and  religion.  .  .  .  This  gives  sense  to  jargon,  demonstra- 
tion to  absurdities,  and  consistency  to  nonsense,  and  is  the  foundation 
of  the  greatest,  I  had  almost  said,  of  all  the  errors  in  the  world".  .     .     . 

Locke's  way  of  stating  his  case  is  rendered  somewhat  unpalatable 
to  the  modern  student  by  his  broad  and  vague  use  of  the  term  'idea', 
and  his  always  speaking  of  the  connection  of  ideas  when  we  should  speak 
of  the  connection  of  stimulus  and  response;  and  it  is  a  great  advantage 
to  have  such  connections  demonstrated  experimentally  in  very  simple 
forms  of  behavior,  as  the  recent  animal  psychologists  have  done.  But 
when  we  go  on  to  apply  the  conception  of  the  conditioned  reflex  to 
behavior  on  higher  levels,  we  are  following  very  closely  in  Locke's 
footsteps.  His  suggestion  that  many  antipathies  and  fears  date  back 
to  accidental  associations  in  childhood  is  specially  worthy  of  attention. 

Besides  this  association  of  old  reactions  to  new 
stimuli,  there  can  also  be  observed,  from  a  very  low 
level  of  animal  behavior  up,  a  dissociation  of  reactions 
from  their  natural  stimuli.  Even  protozoa  or  one-celled 
animals  show  temporary  effects  of  this  sort.  Let  such 
an  animal  be  disturbed  by  a  sudden  current  in  the  water 
in  which  it  lives — a  jet  of  water  squirted  at  it.  It  re- 
sponds by  a  contraction  or  some  other  avoiding  reaction. 
If  the  stimulus  is  repeated  at  short  intervals,  the  reac- 


ACQUIRED  OR  LEARNED  EQUIPMENT  85 

tion  diminishes  in  force  and  then  ceases  to  occur.  The 
animal  has  become  adapted,  'negatively  adapted',  to  the 
harmless  stimulus.  In  the  case  of  protozoa,  the  adapta- 
tion is  only  temporary,  since,  after  a  rest,  the  response 
will  occur  again  as  at  first.  There  has  been  no  addition 
to  the  native  equipment,  nor  subtraction  from  it.  In 
higher  forms  of  animals,  the  adaptation  may  hold  over 
a  period  of  rest.  A  spider,  observed  by  the  Peckhams,^ 
dropped  from  its  web — a  defensive  reaction — at  the 
sound  of  a  large  tuning  fork.  When  it  had  climbed 
back,  the  stimulus,  repeated,  gave  the  same  response; 
and  so  on  for  about  half-a-dozen  times,  after  which  fur- 
ther repetition  of  the  stimulus  did  not  elicit  the  response. 
The  next  day,  response  again,  ceasing  as  before  after  a 
few  repetitions.  But  after  fifteen  days  of  the  same  sort 
of  training,  the  response  could  no  longer  be  got  from 
the  sound  of  the  tuning  fork.  The  adaptation  to  the 
stimulus  had  become  fixed,  and  constituted  an  addition 
to  the  native  equipment  of  the  spider — a  negative  addi- 
tion, in  a  way,  yet  one  that  was  of  positive  advantage  to 
the  animal  in  the  direction  of  economy. 

Many  other  instances  could  be  cited  in  which  a  stimu- 
lus that  naturally  gives  a  certain  response  ceases  to  have 
the  power  to  do  so.  The  defensive  or  avoiding  reactions 
are  naturally  made  in  response  to  stimuli  that  are  under 
certain  circumstances  harmless ;  but  if  the  stimulus  fre- 
quently recurs  under  these  circumstances,  it  may  be- 
come disconnected  from  the  reaction,  at  least  under  the 
given  circumstances,  as  occurs  when  a  horse  gets  used 
to  a  harness  or  to  being  handled.  The  fighting  reactions 
may  similarly  become  dissociated  from  some  of  their 

1  Journ.  of  MorphoL,  1887,  I,  383. 


86     ^  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

natural  stimuli,  as  in  the  case  of  dogs  and  cats  that  learn 
to  live  together  peaceably.  Disjunction  may  also  occur 
between  the  food-getting  reactions  and  some  of  the 
stimuli  that  naturally  arouse  them. 

But  the  commonest  case  of  such  disjunction  is  that 
between  the  exploring  and  attending  reactions  and 
many  stimuli  that  at  first  arouse  them.  By  nature,  any 
sensory  impression  that  is  at  all  strong  or  sudden  at- 
tracts attention;  but  it  loses  this  power  with  frequent 
repetition,  unless,  on  being  attended  to,  it  has  led  to 
some  further  reaction.  We  thus  become  negatively 
adapted  to  the  ticking  of  the  clock,  to  the  presence  of 
any  object  that  does  not  call  for  action  on  our  part,  to 
the  beauty  of  an  always-present  landscape  or  picture, 
to  the  amiable  qualities  of  our  husbands  and  wives,  and 
to  any  demands  on  our  attention  and  effort  that  can  be 
disregarded  with  impunity. 

Negative  adaptation  is  a  source  of  economy  of  effort, 
and  gives  evidence  of  the  working  of  a  principle  of 
economy  in  living  things.  There  is  another  type  of 
disjunction  between  a  natural  reaction  and  a  stimulus 
that  naturally  arouses  it,  a  disjunction  brought  about 
by  the  unfavorable  outcome  of  the  reaction  when  made 
in  response  to  this  particular  stimulus.  The  young 
chick  picks  up  a  caterpillar  as  it  does  any  other  object 
of  similar  size,  but  promptly  drops  it,  and  after  a  few 
such  experiences,  ceases  to  peck  at  caterpillars.  Trip- 
lett's  interesting  experiment  ^  on  the  perch  and  the 
minnows  deserves  mention  here.  Two  perch  were  kept 
in  an  oblong  aquarium,  one  end  of  which  was  shut  off 
by  a  glass  partition.     They  had  formerly  been  fed  on 

^  Amer.  Journ.  of  Psychol.,  1901,  XII,  354. 


ACQUIRED  OR  LEARNED  EQUIPMENT  87 

minnows,  but  at  the  time  of  the  experiment  in  question 
their  food  was  changed  to  fish  worms.  Minnows  were 
placed  from  time  to  time,  and  later  left  all  the  time,  in 
the  further  part  of  the  aquarium.  The  first  reaction  of 
the  perch  to  the  presence  of  the  minnows  was  to  dart  at 
them,  but  after  bumping  their  noses  many  times  against 
the  glass  partition,  they  gave  it  up  for  the  day,  and  on 
the  next  day,  when  the  minnows  were  again  put  in, 
made  less  effort  to  get  them  than  on  the  first  day.  At 
the  end  of  a  month  of  such  training,  the  perch  having 
ceased  to  strike  the  glass,  the  partition  was  removed, 
but  the  perch  behaved  as  if  it  were  still  there,  swimming 
up  to  the  line  where  it  had  been,  and  along  that  line, 
but  not  crossing  it.  The  minnows,  however,  swam  over 
to  the  perch,  but  were  perfectly  safe.  The  perch  had 
ceased  to  hunt  minnows,  at  least  in  that  aquarium. 

A  similar  experiment  on  mammals  may  also  be  de- 
scribed.^ A  mouse  is  placed  in  a  small  box,  with  two 
passages  leading  out  of  it.  The  mouse  reacts,  sooner  or 
later,  by  entering  and  exploring  one  of  the  passages. 
As  he  does  so,  he  steps  on  some  wires  in  the  floor  and 
receives  an  electric  shock  strong  enough  to  be  unpleasant 
but  not  injurious.  He  retreats  from  the  passage,  and 
does  not  immediately  re-enter;  in  fact,  he  tends  to  re- 
main for  some  time  in  the  box  and  not  to  explore  fur- 
ther. After  a  time,  he  becomes  uneasy  and  starts  to 
explore  again.  If  he  enters  the  same  passage  as  before, 
he  again  gets  a  shock,  but  if  he  goes  to  the  other  passage, 
he  gets  no  shock,  but  escapes  from  the  narrow  confine- 
ment of  the  box  to  his  nest.  The  experiment  being  re- 
peated a  number  of  times,  the  mouse  comes  to  take 

^  See  Yerkes,  The  Dancing  Mouse,  1907,  pp.  95  Jf. 


88  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

always  the  passage  that  gives  no  shock.  This  may  be 
the  right-hand  or  the  left-hand  passage,  in  which  case 
the  discrimination  is  quickly  established;  in  fact,  one 
experience  of  the  shock  is  often  sufficient  when  the 
choice  offered  is  simply  between  right  and  left.  When 
one  passage  is  fronted  with  a  white  arch  and  the  other 
with  a  black  arch,  these  signs  being  frequently  inter- 
changed, and  a  shock  given  whenever,  let  us  say,  the 
passage  with  the  white  sign  is  entered,  it  takes  the  mouse 
perhaps  a  hundred  trials  before  he  avoids  the  white 
altogether ;  and  if  the  signs  are  two  shades  of  gray,  not 
very  different  from  each  other,  a  still  larger  number  of 
trials  is  required  before  the  discrimination  is  fully  estab- 
lished. What  the  experiment  shows  for  our  present 
purpose  is,  first,  that  a  stimulus  which  naturally  arouses 
a  positive  reaction — in  this  case,  exploration — becomes 
disjoined  from  this  reaction  and  joined  to  a  negative 
or  avoiding  reaction,  as  the  result  of  a  painful  stimulus 
accompanying  the  positive  reaction;  and,  second,  that, 
driven  by  the  need  of  escaping  from  confinement  and 
by  the  need  of  avoiding  the  pain,  the  animal  comes  to 
attend  to  certain  features  of  the  situation — here  the 
black,  w^hite,  or  gray  signs — that  he  naturally  pays  little 
attention  to.  The  avoidance  of  the  pain-giving  passage 
can  be  understood  as  a  case  of  conditioned  reflex:  the 
sight  of  the  passage  is  quickly  followed  by  the  shock 
which  calls  out  the  avoiding  reaction,  and  thus  the  sight 
of  the  passage  comes  itself  to  evoke  the  avoiding  reac- 
tion, while  the  exploring  reaction,  incompatible  with 
the  avoiding  reaction,  is  shunted  out.  Attention  and 
reaction  to  features  that  would  otherwise  have  been 
neglected  may  perhaps  be  understood  as  follows :  driven 


ACQUIRED  OR  LEARNED  EQUIPMENT  89 

by  the  need  of  escaping  from  the  box,  the  mouse  is 
brought  to  a  halt  by  the  painful  stimulus,  and  thus 
stimuli  which  have  only  a  faint  power  to  arouse  response 
in  him  have  a  chance  to  exert  whatever  power  they  have. 

Disjunction  of  a  response  from  its  natural  stimulus 
by  punishment,  like  the  other  form  of  disjunction  by 
adaptation,  plays  a  great  part  in  modifying  human  as 
well  as  animal  equipment  for  future  action.  To  be 
effective,  punishment  should  be  applied  in  direct  con- 
nection with  the  act  punished,  it  should  be  applied 
regularly  and  not  spasmodically,  and  it  should  be  just 
severe  enough  to  produce  the  avoiding  reaction,  without 
causing  such  fear  as  to  paralyze  further  attention  to  the 
situation.  A  situation  which  elicits  a  punishable  reac- 
tion may  be  well  conceived  of  as  a  puzzle,  the  solution 
of  which  depends  upon  attention  to  elements  that  have 
no  great  power  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  animal 
or  natural  man ;  but  if  the  element  in  the  situation  that 
does  naturally  control  the  response  brings  punishment 
without  paralyzing  activity,  other  elements  may  be 
observed  and  a  suitable  reaction  reached. 

Punishment  need  not  mean  pain.  If  a  man  or  animal 
has  a  'dead  set'  towards  a  certain  result  (or  'consumma- 
tion'), being  foiled  in  the  pursuit  of  this  aim  is,  sub- 
jectively, as  unpleasant  as  actual  pain,  and  acts  as  an 
effective  punishment,  deterring  not,  indeed,  from  the 
pursuit  of  the  end,  but  from  the  means  which  have  led 
to  ill  success.  A  rat — to  recur  to  the  animal  experiments^ 
— is  placed  in  a  maze  w^ith  food  at  the  center.  At  first, 
being  unaware  of  the  neighborhood  of  food,  the  rat 
simply  explores;  but  after  it  has  once  come  upon  the 

1  See  Hicks  and  Carr,  Journal  of  Animal  Behavior^  1912,  II,  98. 


90  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

food,  and  is  then  replaced  at  the  beginning,  its  behavior 
shows  an  urgency  that  indicates  searching.  After  a 
number  of  trials,  it  avoids  all  the  blind  alleys,  and  races 
at  top  speed  through  the  maze  to  the  food.  Its  behavior 
towards  the  blind  alleys  is  interesting.  At  first,  any 
passage  arouses  the  exploring  reaction,  but  when  in 
search  of  the  food,  it  comes  out  of  a  blind  alley  as  soon 
as  it  has  explored  it  a  little ;  the  next  time,  it  may  simply 
stick  its  head  in  and  pass  on;  while  finally  it  disregards 
the  blind  alley  altogether.  In  short,  it  develops  a  nega- 
tive or  avoiding  reaction  to  the  blind  alley  very  much 
as  if  an  electric  shock  were  concealed  there. 

A  somewhat  different  form  of  experiment,  much  used 
in  studying  animal  learning,  is  the  'puzzle-box',  a  cage 
to  be  escaped  from  by  operating  some  mechanical  de- 
\  ice,  such  as  a  bolt.  A  cat,  in  Thomdike's  experiments,^ 
was  placed  hungry  in  the  cage,  and  a  bit  of  food  out- 
side, visible  through  the  bars  of  the  cage.  The  animal 
tries  to  squeeze  between  the  bars  toward  the  food. 
Foiled  here,  it  attacks  some  other  promising  opening, 
or  some  part  of  the  cage  that  stands  out  enough  to  at- 
tract its  attention.  It  bites  here,  claws  there,  pulls  and 
shakes  anything  that  moves  or  yields  at  all,  and  among 
other  things  attacks  the  bolt  and  eventually  gets  out 
and  is  rewarded  by  food.  Replaced  in  the  cage,  it  does 
much  the  same,  but  is  apt,  on  the  whole,  to  make  fewer 
useless  movements  and  escape  more  quickly.  In  the 
course  of  a  number  of  trials,  more  or  fewer  according  to 
the  difficulty  of  the  act  required,  it  eliminates  all  the 
unsuccessful  reactions,  and  becomes  able  to  escape  in- 
stantly.    This  has  been  called  learning  by  'trial  and 

^  Animal  Intelligence,  1 8g8. 


ACQUIRED  OR  LEARNED  EQUIPMENT  91 

error'.  The  outstanding  features  of  the  process  are 
(i)  the  set  or  drive  to  get  out,  (2)  the  varied  reactions 
made  to  various  features  of  the  complex  situation  that 
confronts  the  cat,  (3)  the  gradual  elimination  of  the  un- 
successful reactions,  and  (4)  the  directness  and  speed 
with  which  the  successful  reaction  is  finally  made. 

The  inner  nature  of  this  process  of  learning  by  trial 
and  error  is  not  yet  clear.  Thomdike  has  based  upon 
it  his  'law  of  effect',  which  states  that  the  satisfying  or 
unsatisfying  outcome  of  a  reaction  acts  respectively  to 
strengthen  or  weaken  the  connection  between  the  stimu- 
lus and  that  reaction,  so  that  those  reactions  which  bring 
satisfaction  gradually  get  the  advantage  over  those  that 
do  not.  Watson  and  others  have  sought  to  get  rid  of 
this  law  of  effect,  and  explain  everything  in  terms  of  the 
conditioned  reflex  and  of  the  long-accepted  'law  of 
frequency',  which  states  that  the  connection  between 
a  stimulus  and  a  response  is  stronger  in  proportion  to 
the  number  of  times  the  reaction  has  been  made;  but 
their  analysis  is  as  yet  far  from  complete.  There  can 
be  no  manner  of  doubt  that  an  unsuccessful  reaction 
acts  as  a  punishment  and  leads  to  avoidance  of  that  par- 
ticular act ;  and  it  is  also  highly  probable  that  that  one  of 
the  preparatory  reactions  which  leads  over  directly  into 
the  consummatory  reaction  gets  the  benefit  of  the 
dammed-up  energy  tending  towards  the  consummatory 
reaction,  and  so  becomes  integrated  with  the  consum- 
matory reaction  into  a  single  complex  act.  If  this  is  a 
correct  interpretation,  we  have  in  this  instance  of  learn- 
ing something  that  we  have  missed  hitherto,  namely,  the 
addition,  not  only  of  new  connections  between  stimulus 
and  native  response,  but  the  building  up  of  two  natural 


92  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

responses  into  a  single  complex  act.  The  cat  does  not 
simply  eliminate  unsuccessful  reactions  to  the  situation, 
and  thus  leave  the  successful  response  as  the  sole  reac- 
tion, but  it  learns  the  complex  response  of  pushing-the- 
bolt-going-out-and-eating. 

In  the  human  being,  acquired  equipment  contains  a 
vast  number  of  complex  acts  that  have  been  integrated 
in  the  process  of  learning  and  so  made  available  as  units. 
Language  furnishes  a  host  of  instances.  The  elementary 
movements  of  vocalization  and  articulation  are  pro- 
vided by  nature  and  executed  by  the  infant  before  he 
begins  to  learn  to  speak.  His  learning  to  speak  con- 
sists partly  in  forming  fixed  compounds  of  these  ele- 
mentary movements — such  fixed  units  as  words,  syl- 
lables, and  familiar  phrases — ^which  thereafter  are  units 
for  him.  The  mechanism  for  a  word  or  familiar  phrase 
is  thrown  into  action  by  a  single  act,  and  not  by  a  series 
of  conscious  acts  corresponding  to  the  linguistic  ele- 
ments of  the  word  or  phrase.  The  same  sort  of  thing  is 
true  of  writing.  Nature  provides  the  elementary  finger 
movements;  training  combines  these  into  the  complex 
movements  of  making  loops  and  letters,  writing  whole 
words,  signing  one's  name.  After  training,  these  com- 
plex movements  are  thrown  into  action  as  units.  In 
learning  to  read,  a  child  may  begin  w4th  the  letters,  or 
with  words,  or  even  with  short  sentences;  but,  in  any 
case,  he  comes  finally  to  respond  to  the  complex  printed 
patterns  as  units.  More  precise  information  as  to  the 
method  of  learning  to  deal  with  such  linguistic  com- 
plexes has  been  obtained  by  experiments  on  the  learning 
by  adults  of  typewriting  and  telegraphy.  The  process 
of  learning  is  very  much  the  same  in  each  case.    In  be- 


ACQUIRED  OR  LEARNED  EQUIPMENT  93 

ginning  typewriting^  (by  the  'touch'  method,  let  us  sup- 
pose, in  which  the  keyboard  is  not  visible,  though  a 
diagram  of  it  may  be  placed  before  the  subject  to  guide 
his  movements),  the  first  task  is  to  learn  the  location  of 
the  single  letters  and  the  finger  movement  necessary  to 
reach  each  letter  from  the  primary  position  of  the  hands. 
When,  after  considerable  practice,  the  learner  is  able  to 
strike  any  letter  as  soon  as  he  thinks  of  it,  by  a  single 
direct  movement  of  the  proper  finger,  he  is  able  to  write 
with  some  little  speed,  and  may  imagine  that  he  has 
learned  typewriting,  and  that  his  further  progress  will 
simply  consist  in  speeding  up  and  smoothing  off  the 
process  as  he  is  then  executing  it.  But  if  he  continues 
his  effort  for  greater  speed,  he  finds,  after  some  time, 
that  he  is  writing  in  a  different  way,  no  longer  spelling 
out  every  word,  and  writing  each  letter  by  a  separate 
act,  but  treating  familiar  words  as  wholes,  and  execut- 
ing the  combination  of  letter  movements  that  produce 
the  word  as  a  single  complex  act.  He  even  comes,  with 
continued  practice,  to  write  familiar  phrases  as  wholes. 
Evidently  he  has  developed  mechanisms  for  producing 
fixed  series  of  finger  movements,  and  works  with  these 
larger  mechanisms  instead  of  with  the  smaller  mech- 
anisms which  he  at  first  developed  for  making  single 
finger  movements  at  the  thought  of  single  letters.  These 
simplest  units  have  come  to  be  geared  together  into 
higher  units.  The  whole  developed  system  of  type- 
writing mechanisms  possesses  a  high  degree  of  flexibility, 
since  either  the  single  letter  reactions  or  their  numerous 
combinations  can,  according  to  circumstances,  be 
touched  off. 

1  See  W.  F.  Book,  The  Psychology  of  Skill,  1908. 


94  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

The  process  of  learning  to  telegraph ^  goes  through  the 
same  stages,  beginning  with  letter  units,  and  adding 
word  and  phrase  units  later.  The  telegrapher,  more- 
over, learns  not  only  to  write  or  'send'  by  letters,  words, 
and  phrases  as  units,  but  also  to  'receive'  in  the  same 
way.  At  first,  when  he  is  receiving  a  message  by  ear 
from  the  sounder,  he  must  identify  the  single  letters  in 
the  series  of  clicks  that  come  to  him,  and  so  laboriously 
spell  out  the  words.  As  long  as  he  is  in  this  stage,  his 
receiving  is  too  slow  for  regular  line  work.  By  dint  of 
continued  practice,  he  is  able  to  recognize  the  longer 
series  of  clicks  that  represents  a  word,  without  picking 
out  the  separate  letters  in  that  word ;  and  the  same  with 
familiar  phrases.  He  develops  mechanisms  of  the 
'higher  unit'  variety  for  recognizing  words  and  phrases, 
and  habitually  makes  use  of  these,  while  he  is  always 
able  to  utilize  also  the  simpler  mechanisms  for  recog- 
nizing single  letters  when  the  message  comes  in  un- 
familiar words. 

'Higher  unit  mechanisms',  so  clearly  evident  in  lin- 
guistic performances,  from  speaking  to  telegraphing, 
are  also  present  in  all  skilled  action;  and,  in  fact,  skill 
consists  very  largely  in  the  use  of  such  labor-saving 
machinery.  As  to  the  process  by  which  these  higher 
units  are  developed,  we  have  one  or  two  significant 
indications. 

When  the  compound  act  to  be  learned  is  of  a  motor 
sort,  as  in  typewriting  or  in  sending  telegraphic  mes- 
sages, an  essential  element  of  the  process  of  learning 
seems  to  be  a  forward-looking  or  anticipation.    While 

1  Bryan  and  Harter,  Psychological  Review,  1897,    IV,    27   and    1899, 

VI,  345. 


ACQUIRED  OR  LEARNED  EQUIPMENT     95 

one  simple  movement  is  being  executed,  attention  is 
already  directed  towards  the  movement  that  is  next  to 
follow.  When  the  learner  has  so  far  progressed  that  he 
can  thus  anticipate,  the  jerkiness  previously  visible  in 
his  movements  tends  to  disappear,  since,  instead  of 
halting  at  the  end  of  the  first  movement  and  then  ini- 
tiating the  second,  he  goes  through  the  preliminaries  of 
the  second  movement  while  actually  executing  the  first, 
and  so  is  able  to  pass  smoothly  from  one  to  the  other. 
When  this  manner  of  executing  a  series  of  movements 
has  become  habitual  and  easy,  the  series  becomes  a 
single  continuous  act. 

When  the  compound  act  to  be  learned  is  one  of  a  per- 
ceptual sort,  as  in  receiving  telegraphic  messages,  antici- 
pation of  what  is  to  come  is  unsafe,  and  the  mode  of 
procedure  adopted  is  to  keep  the  attention  behind,  in- 
stead of  ahead  of  the  external  end  of  the  process.  That 
is  to  say,  in  receiving  telegraphic  messages,  one  who  is 
beginning  to  develop  skill  allows  a  number  of  clicks  to 
come  and  go  before  definitely  settling  with  any  of  them. 
He  keeps  behind  the  clicks  in  his  reading  of  them,  and 
by  this  means  is  able  to  fix  his  attention  on  the  whole 
series  corresponding  to  a  word  or  phrase.  He  so  adjusts 
his  attention  that  his  reaction  to  the  clicks  will  be  deter- 
mined by  a  whole  lot  of  them  instead  of  by  one  or  two. 

While  the  process  of  learning  to  perceive  and  recog- 
nize complex  objects  is  not  so  easy  to  study  as  the  pro- 
cess of  making  complex  movements,  this  observation  on 
telegraphers  is  probably  a  good  sample  of  what  occurs 
in  other  analogous  cases — the  perception  of  a  complex 
is  possible  by  virtue  of  such  an  attitude  of  attention  as 
permits  the  complex  of  stimuli  to  act  conjointly  in  deter- 


96  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

mining  the  perceptual  act.  We  have  some  evidence  of 
this  sort  of  thing  in  experiments^  on  memorizing  long 
lists  of  numbers  or  nonsense  syllables.  In  such  work, 
the  subject  spontaneously  groups  the  numbers  or  syl- 
lables, and  the  division  into  groups  precedes  careful 
study  of  the  single  items.  The  group  is  apprehended 
first  as  a  unit,  and  then  analyzed  into  its  parts,  the  parts 
being  perceived  in  their  relationship  to  their  group. 
Only  by  taking  the  material  in  such  larger  units  is  it 
possible  to  memorize  economically. 

A  false  impression  may  easily  be  created  by  confining 
the  examination  of  'higher  units*  to  typewriting  and 
telegraphy,  in  which  it  is  customary,  if  not  absolutely 
necessary,  to  begin  by  mastering  the  lower  units — here 
the  letters — and  in  which  the  higher  units  make  their 
appearance  only  after  the  lower  units  are  so  well  mas- 
tered as  to  be  automatic.  Modern  experience  in  the 
teaching  of  reading  shows  that  there  it  is  not  necessary 
to  master  the  letters  before  dealing  with  words  as  units. 
The  printed  word,  as  a  whole,  has  a  characteristic  ap- 
pearance which  can  be  recognized  by  the  child  before  he 
knows  the  letters  put  together  to  make  the  word.  His 
perception  of  the  word  is  at  first  rather  vague  and  un- 
analyzed,  though  definite  enough  to  identify  the  word ; 
and  the  child's  further  progress  in  reading  consists 
partly  in  the  analysis  of  the  word  units  into  letter  units. 
'Higher  units  first,  with  more  or  less  of  later  analysis 
into  smaller  units'  is  probably  the  rule  rather  than  the 
exception.  The  child  perceives  an  object  first  as  a 
whole;  later  he  may  observe  how  the  object  is  made  up. 
The  adult  procedure  also  is  to  begin  with  the  total 

1  G.  E.  Miiller,  Zur  Analyse  der  GeddcUnistdtigkeit,  191 1,  1913. 


ACQUIRED  OR  LEARNED  EQUIPMENT  97 

impression  of  a  complex  object,  and  to  advance,  if  and 
as  far  as  necessary,  to  the  details.  Many  a  face  can  we 
recognize  which  we  cannot  describe  in  any  detail. 
Oftentimes,  what  we  are  able  to  tell  about  a  well-known 
face  amounts  to  little  more  than  that  it  is  a  human  face. 
We  know  it  as  a  characteristic  whole,  but  we  do  not 
know  its  parts.  An  artist,  under  the  necessity  of  repro- 
ducing the  face,  notices  details,  but  even  he  does  not 
push  his  analysis  to  the  limit.  He  does  not  propose  to 
map  every  little  marking,  and  neglects  what  is  of  no 
consequence  for  his  purpose.  This  is  typical  of  the 
process  of  observation.  Observation  starts  with  un- 
analyzed  wholes  and  proceeds  as  far  as  necessary  in  the 
detection  of  details.  The  whole  with  which  it  starts  is 
not  necessarily  the  largest  whole  that  can  be  appre- 
hended ;  and  accordingly  the  reverse  process  of  combin- 
ing smaller  units  that  have  been  observed  into  larger 
units  also  goes  on,  but  the  movement  from  the  whole  to 
the  part  is  the  more  characteristic  of  perceptual  acts. 
Nor  is  it  by  any  means  absent  from  motor  acts.  In 
learning  to  use  a  tool,  the  start  is  usually  made  by  a 
rough  approximation  to  the  movement  as  a  whole,  and 
progress  consists  partly  in  noticing  details  in  the 
manipulation  which  are  capable  of  improvement.  A 
complex  motor  act,  performed  at  first  as  a  rough  whole, 
may  next  be  analyzed  into  a  sequence  of  elementary 
acts,  and  these  separately  mastered  and  then  recom- 
bined  into  a  smooth,  continuous  process,  as  already 
described ;  so  the  act  becomes  a  whole  again,  but  a  more 
skillful  whole  than  at  first. 

Besides  the  combination  of  instinctive  movements 
into  learned  compounds,  there  is  some  indication  that 


98  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

a  compound  movement  provided  by  nature  can  be 
broken  up,  so  that  a  learned  movement  may  consist  of 
a  part  of  an  instinctive  movement.  The  most  obvious 
cases  are  the  various  tricks  of  movement  that  children 
delight  in — winking  one  eye,  bending  a  finger  at  one 
joint,  etc.  Of  more  practical  significance  is  the  ability 
to  move  single  fingers  as  in  piano  playing,  an  ability 
which  is  only  learned  by  considerable  effort,  because  the 
natural  tendency  of  the  fingers  (except  the  index)  is  to 
move  together.  Some  doubt  is  thrown  on  all  these  cases 
by  the  fact  that  the  young  baby  may  sometimes  be 
observed  to  do  such  things  as  wink  one  eye  or  move  the 
fingers  separately,  though  in  an  incomplete  way;  pos- 
sibly, we  should  infer,  the  process  of  learning  these 
isolated  movements  later  is  less  a  process  of  breaking 
up  a  natural  coordination  than  a  process  of  getting 
control  over  a  simpler  and  little  used  but  still  natural 
movement.  Whether  the  analytic  process,  on  the  motor 
side,  ever  gets  beyond  the  simplest  coordinations  pro- 
vided in  native  equipment,  is  thus  subject  to  doubt, 
though  there  is  no  doubt  that  analysis  of  the  motor 
compounds  that  naturally  occur  in  response  to  a  given 
situation  is  a  common  process  of  learning.  On  the  per- 
ceptual side,  analysis  is  still  more  in  evidence,  in  the 
sense  that  we  learn  to  notice  and  respond  to  elements 
and  features  of  a  complex  object  or  situation  which  at 
first  we  only  perceive  as  a  totality.  Thus  we  become 
observant  of  size,  shape,  color,  number,  and  numerous 
other  qualities  and  relations  of  things. 

The  simplest  instance  of  the  analytic  process  is  per- 
haps that  already  mentioned  of  the  mouse  which,  being 
brought  to  a  halt  in  its  natural  reaction  to  a  situation  as 


ACQUIRED  OR  LEARNED  EQUIPMENT  99 

a  whole  by  encountering  an  electric  shock,  came  to 
react  to  particular  features,  such  as  a  black  or  white 
arch  over  a  door,  to  which  by  nature  it  paid  little  atten- 
tion. It  is  perhaps  pretty  generally  true  that  a  check 
encountered  in  the  course  of  natural  unanalytic  action 
affords  the  occasion  for  analysis. 

Analysis  and  synthesis — to  use  these  old  terms  in  a 
somewhat  new  way — are  two  general  directions  in  which 
the  acquisition  of  learned  equipment  proceeds,  addi- 
tional to  the  simple  process  typified  by  the  conditioned 
reflex.  The  analytic  process  is  better  known  in  per- 
ceptual reactions,  where  it  seems  to  consist,  as  just  said, 
in  being  brought  to  a  halt  in  the  course  of  unanalyzed 
reaction  to  a  situation  as  a  whole,  and,  while  in  this 
suspended  state,  being  affected  by  elements  of  the  situa- 
tion which  previously  had  no  distinct  influence.  The 
synthetic  process  is  visible  in  both  perceptual  and  motor 
reactions.  Either  perceptual  or  motor  reactions,  once 
they  have  become  easy  through  practice,  may  be  com- 
bined into  'higher  units'.  The  drive  actuating  the  pro- 
cess of  combination  is  nothing  else  than  the  struggle  for 
speed,  efficiency,  economy — in  a  word,  for  success  in 
whatever  undertaking  is  on  foot.  The  means  by  which 
the  combination  is  realized  is  an  enlarging  of  the  span 
of  action,  taking  the  form,  in  motor  reactions,  of  antici- 
pating the  movements  that  are  just  ahead,  and,  in 
perception,  of  holding  back  from  reacting  to  a  single 
stimulus  till  others  also  have  a  chance  to  exert  their 
influence;  in  either  case,  a  coordination  is  effected  be- 
tween two  or  more  elementary  reactions,  and  a  higher 
unit  of  reaction  results  which  may,  by  repetition,  become 
a  well-trained  and  fixed  possession  of  the  individual. 


lOO  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

Learned  equipment,  so  far  as  iiidicated  above,  con- 
sists in  new  'mechanisms';  and  the  question  remains 
whether  there  is  any  similar  development  by  the  indi- 
vidual of  new  'drives'.  The  conditioned  reflex  type  of 
process  certainly  occurs  with  drives,  as  already  illus- 
trated in  the  case  of  laughter.  That  is,  the  mirthful 
tendency,  which,  once  aroused,  has  the  character  of 
a  drive,  becomes  attached  in  the  course  of  experience  to 
other  than  its  natural  stimuli.  The  same  is  true  of  all 
instinctive  tendencies.  They  come  to  be  aroused  by 
stimuli  that  originally  had  no  power  to  arouse  them. 

Native  drives  may  also  become  combined  into  mixed 
or  compound  motives.  A  given  object  may  be  an  ef- 
fective stimulus  for  two  or  more  natural  tendencies, 
and  if  the  object  frequently  recurs  in  an  individual's 
experience,  these  tendencies  may  become  organized 
about  that  object  as  a  center  into  a  'higher  unit'  of 
drive,  analogous  to  the  higher  units  spoken  of  above  in 
the  case  of  mechanisms.  This  is  essentially  the  process 
by  which  'sentiments'  of  love  and  respect,  and  others, 
are  developed,  according  to  the  view  of  Shand  and 
McDougall.^  Such  a  compound  drive  may  be  organized 
about  a  single  object  or  about  a  class  of  objects.  Chil- 
dren arouse  in  adults  the  impulse  to  protect  them  and 
also  the  tendency  towards  amusement ;  and  the  attitude 
of  adults  towards  children  is  a  more  or  less  fixed  com- 
pound of  these  two  tendencies.  One's  own  child  arouses 
in  addition  the  sense  of  possession  and  pride;  and  thus 
the  motive  that  prompts  the  parent  in  his  dealings  with 
his  child  is  rather  a  mixed  motive,  and  a  motive  that 

1  A  convenient  reference  is  the  latter's  Social  Psychology ,  Chapters 
V  and  VI. 


ACQUIRED  OR  LEARNED  EQUIPMENT     ipr.'l 

has  been  developed  in  his  experience.  In  the  same  way,  z^- 
one's  attitude  towards  persons  of  the  opposite  sex  'is'^%f^'> 
likely  to  be  composed  of  sex  attraction,  curiosity,  fear 
and  uncertainty,  lack  of  complete  sympathy,  and  es- 
thetic appreciation;  and  this  attitude  is  not  static  but 
a  driving  force  that  helps  to  determine  behavior.  Sim- 
ilar attitudes  grow  up  in  the  course  of  experience 
towards  servants,  masters,  and  other  classes  of  persons. 
It  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  behavior  towards 
any  such  class  of  persons  is  a  purely  automatic  learned 
response.  There  are,  indeed,  certain  fixed  habits  of 
response  in  the  way  of  manners ;  but  the  behavior  of  an 
individual  towards  persons  of  a  given  class  may  vary 
indefinitely  in  changing  circumstances,  and  all  the  while 
remain  'in  keeping'.  Instead  of  merely  arousing  a 
purely  motor  response,  a  person  of  a  given  class  arouses 
first  of  all  the  habitual  attitude  towards  members  of 
that  class,  and  this  attitude  (or,  better,  'drive')  con- 
tributes to  the  selection  of  the  particular  mechanisms 
that  give  the  overt  behavior. 

Whether  combination  is  balanced,  as  in  the  process  of 
acquiring  mechanisms,  by  an  analysis  that  breaks  up 
natural  compound  drives  and  so  in  effect  increases  the 
diversity  of  motive  forces,  is  rather  questionable;  at 
least,  there  is  nothing  definite  to  say  on  the  matter. 
The  partial  elimination  of  a  drive  from  the  individual, 
as  the  result  of  his  training — a  process  analogous  to  the 
negative  adaptation  or  dissociation  spoken  of  under  the 
head  of  mechanisms — is  undoubtedly  a  fact.  We  learn 
not  simply  to  avoid  the  overt  expression  of  anger,  but 
even  to  avoid  getting  angry  and  being  easily  'offended'. 
Not  that  anger  as  a  motive  force  is  entirely  eliminated 


fhi02  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

from  any  one;  but  its  influence  is  diminished  in  many. 
The  child  is  angered  and  strikes;  the  effect  of  this  be- 
havior being  often  disagreeable  to  himself,  he  learns  to 
restrain  his  actions  when  angry;  but  ungratified  anger 
being  itself  a  disagreeable  state,  he  later  learns  to  re- 
strain his  anger  also,  and  to  go  on  the  even  tenor  of  his 
way,  driven  by  other  motives  and  undeflected  by  the 
distraction  of  getting  angry. 

Besides  the  elimination  of  drives,  their  attachment  to 
new  stimuli  and  their  combinations,  there  is  another 
source  of  acquired  motive  forces.  It  is  a  general  prin- 
ciple of  human  activity  that  we  are  interested  in  over- 
coming difficulties  and  interested,  on  the  other  hand, 
in  what  we  can  do  successfully — in  a  word,  we  are  in- 
terested in  successfully  overcoming  difficulties.  The 
difficulty  may  lie  on  the  side  of  motor  execution  of  an 
act  or  on  the  side  of  perceiving  and  grasping  a  state  of 
affairs,  or  on  both  sides  at  once.  Action  that  is  too  easy 
because  all  the  difficulties  have  been  smoothed  away  or 
already  subjugated  by  well-formed  habits  is  automatic 
rather  than  interesting,  and  action  that  meets  with  un- 
surmountable  obstacles  is  distinctly  annoying;  but  ac- 
tion that  encounters  resistance  but  overcomes  it  with- 
out resorting  to  the  last  ounce  of  effort  is  distinctly 
interesting.  Now,  as  we  get  acquainted  with  the  world, 
we  learn  to  perceive  and  apprehend  objects  and  thus 
generate  new  interests;  for  every  object  that  is  suffi- 
ciently novel  to  cause  some  difficulty  in  apprehension, 
while  still  within  the  power  of  our  trained  powers  of 
perception,  is  an  interesting  object  to  us,  and  we  are 
driven  to  apprehend  it  by  the  impulse  to  surmount  the 
difficulty  that  it  presents.     In  the  same  way,  a  motor 


ACQUIRED  OR  LEARNED  EQUIPMENT  103 

activity  for  which  we  have  well-trained  mechanisms, 
while  still  sufficiently  novel  to  tax  our  powers  somewhat, 
is  an  interesting  action  to  perform,  and  we  are  driven  to 
its  performance  by  the  impulse  towards  overcoming 
the  surmountable  that  it  offers.  Those  who,  like 
McDougall,  attempt  to  trace  all  motive  force  to  the 
instincts,  would  regard  such  acts  as  driven  by  the  native 
impulses  of  curiosity  and  manipulation ;  but  in  so  doing 
they  miss  the  point.  There  is  not  an  undifferentiated 
reservoir  of  motive  force,  to  be  called  curiosity,  that 
can  be  led  off  into  one  or  another  act  of  perception ;  but 
curiosity  is  simply  a  collective  name  for  an  indefinite 
number  of  impulses,  each  of  which  is  dependent  on  the 
existence  of  some  degree  of  ability  to  perceive  and  under- 
stand a  certain  object.  The  child  shows  curiosity  first 
with  regard  to  bright  lights  and  sharp  contrasts,  which 
are  the  natural  stimuli  for  his  eye  movements;  later, 
after  he  has  learned  to  some  extent  to  know  persons  and 
things,  his  curiosity  is  directed  towards  them ;  and  when 
he  has  begun  to  perceive  the  relations  of  things,  he  shows 
curiosity  regarding  these  relations.  His  capacity  to 
acquire  mechanisms  for  handling  various  sorts  of  ob- 
jects is  native,  to  be  sure,  but  it  is  only  as  this  capacity 
is  developed  by  training  that  the  curiosity  appears.  In 
other  words,  curiosity,  the  driving  force  in  any  per- 
ceptual act,  is  better  conceived  as  the  interest  in  that 
particular  perceptual  act,  or,  more  intelligibly,  in  that 
particular  object.  As  then  the  child  becomes  able  by 
his  experience  to  apprehend  objects,  he  comes  to  have 
new  interests,  new  driving  forces  for  his  perception. 
Similar  remarks  can  be  made  regarding  the  develop- 
ment of  interest  in  skilled  movements. 


I04  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

The  point  at  issue  is  very  well  brought  out  in  the  case 
of  a  game  of  skill.  The  motive  that  drives  the  chess 
player  to  his  chess,  or  the  golf  player  to  his  golf,  is  not 
at  all  adequately  accounted  for  by  referring  to  an  un- 
differentiated reservoir  of  curiosity  or  manipulativeness. 
The  one  is  driven  precisely  by  an  interest  in  chess  and 
the  other  by  an  interest  in  golf.  The  driving  forces  are 
specific,  and  acquired  in  the  learning  of  these  games.  In 
the  same  way,  while  a  man  may  enter  a  certain  line  of 
business  from  a  purely  external  economic  motive,  he 
develops  an  interest  in  the  business  for  its  own  sake 
(unless  he  is  entirely  out  of  his  element),  as  he  acquires 
mastery  of  its  problems  and  processes;  and  the  motive 
force  that  drives  him  in  the  daily  task,  provided  of 
course  this  does  not  degenerate  into  mere  automatic 
routine,  is  precisely  an  interest  in  the  problems  con- 
fronting him  and  in  the  processes  by  which  he  is  able  to 
deal  with  those  problems.  The  end  furnishes  the  motive 
force  for  the  search  for  means,  but  once  the  means  are 
found,  they  are  apt  to  become  interesting  on  their  own 
account. 

In  short,  the  power  of  acquiring  new  mechanisms 
possessed  by  the  human  mind  is  at  the  same  time  a 
power  of  acquiring  new  drives;  for  every  mechanism, 
when  at  that  stage  of  its  development  when  it  has 
reached  a  degree  of  effectiveness  without  having  yet 
become  entirely  automatic,  is  itself  a  drive  and  capable 
of  motivating  activities  that  lie  beyond  its  immediate 
scope.  The  primal  forces  of  hunger,  fear,  sex,  and  the 
rest,  continue  in  force,  but  do  not  by  any  means,  even 
with  their  combinations,  account  for  the  sum  total  of 
drives  actuating  the  experienced  individual. 


THE  FACTOR  OF  SELECTION 
AND  CONTROL 

There  is  a  certain  analogy  between  a  man  and  a 
manufacturing  plant — a  big,  complex  plant,  equipped 
to  deal  with  many  sorts  of  raw  material  and  to  turn  out 
a  great  variety  of  finished  products.  Beginning  with  an 
outfit  of  fundamental  mechanisms,  this  plant  has  de- 
veloped and  installed  a  great  variety  of  special  linkages, 
combinations,  and  economies  adapted  to  the  work  it  has 
found  to  do.  In  so  far  as  the  future  demands  made  upon 
it  remain  the  same  as  those  it  has  met  in  the  past,  it  is 
equipped  for  meeting  them ;  if  new  demands  arise,  new 
equipment  will  have  to  be  developed ;  if  old  equipment 
is  present  for  which  there  is  no  further  demand,  it  is  not 
thrown  out — there  being  no  way  of  doing  that — but  it 
grows  stiff  and  rusty  with  disuse,  and  may  be  alto- 
gether lost  sight  of  till  some  day  when,  perhaps,  the  old 
demand  arises  again,  and  the  old  machine  responds  as 
best  it  can,  and  may  prove,  after  being  limbered  up  by 
activity,  to  be  still  a  good  functional  unit — or  may  need 
to  be  mostly  reconstructed.  An  inventory  of  the  equip- 
ment of  the  plant  at  any  time  would  show  some  pieces 
in  constant  use,  some  in  frequent  use  and  perfect  work- 
ing order,  and  others  of  all  degrees  of  readiness  or  un- 
readiness, due  to  the  frequency  and  recency  of  their 
past  use.  Some  pieces  are  falling  apart  through  dis- 
use ;  some  have  never  been  fully  constructed ;  and  some 


io6  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

that  never  have  found  a  use  are  still  in  the  vague,  un- 
formed state  in  which  they  were  provided  in  the  original 
outfit  of  the  plant.  At  any  one  moment,  only  a  small 
part  of  this  total  equipment  is  in  action,  the  rest  remain- 
ing in  a  resting  condition,  from  which  it  is  awakened — 
to  shift  to  terms  more  nearly  descriptive  of  what  hap- 
pens in  a  man  or  animal — by  something  acting  upon  it 
as  a  stimulus. 

A  man  carries  around  with  him  a  vast  assortment  of 
possibilities  of  action.  The  best  conception  of  a  'pos- 
sibility of  action'  is  undoubtedly  that  of  a  neural 
mechanism  so  connected  with  other  neural  mechanisms 
and  with  the  sense  organs  and  muscles  as  to  give  the 
action  when  aroused.  The  question  now  before  us  is 
as  to  what  determines  which  of  the  many  possible  ac- 
tions shall  become  actual  at  a  given  time — as  to  how 
some  are  activated  while  others  are  left  inactive — as  to 
the  arrangement  by  which  drive  is  at  any  moment  ap- 
plied to  certain  mechanisms  and  not  to  others.  It  is  a 
question  of  selection,  management,  and  control. 

The  fundamental  thing  in  selection  is  undoubtedly 
the  linkages,  some  provided  by  nature  and  others  es- 
tablished by  previous  training,  between  actions  and 
their  exciting  stimuli.  Actions  are  reactions,  being  con- 
nected by  nature  or  training  with  certain  stimuli ;  and 
unless  the  stimulus  occurs  the  reaction  does  not  occur, 
but  its  mechanisms  remain  in  the  resting  condition. 
The  mechanism  for  flight  exists  in  good  working  order 
in  an  animal,  but  unless  the  situation  confronting  the 
animal  contains  something  that  the  animal  naturally 
fears  or  has  learned  to  fear,  the  flight  mechanism  is  not 
activated.     Thus  the  selective  agency  is  very  largely 


SELECTION  AND  CONTROL  107 

to  be  sought  in  the  situation  confronting  the  animal  or 
man. 

Little  further  would  require  to  be  said  regarding  se- 
lection, if  it  were  true  that  each  stimulus  were  simply 
joined  to  one  reaction,  each  reaction  to  a  single  stimulus, 
and  if  stimuli  always  came  one  at  a  time.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  none  of  these  things  is  true.  The  same  stimulus 
may  have  become  linked  with  two  or  more  reactions, 
and  the  same  act  with  two  or  more  stimuli;  and  the 
situation  presented  is  always  complex,  containing  a 
number  of  elements  that  are  capable  of  acting  as  stim- 
uli to  different  reactions.  Under  such  conditions,  the 
question  of  selection  is  very  real  and  not  at  all  easy  to 
answer  in  full. 

Let  us  revert  for  a  moment  to  the  cat  in  the  puzzle- 
box.  The  situation  is  complex :  confinement,  food  out- 
side, bars,  spaces,  and  other  points  that  can  be  attacked. 
The  cat  possesses  a  variety  of  reactions  to  this  situation. 
It  brings  out  its  reactions  in  succession,  attacking  first 
one  and  then  another  part  of  the  cage — or,  as  we  might 
also  say,  responding  first  to  one  and  then  to  another  fea- 
ture of  the  situation.  Some  one  feature  has  an  advan- 
tage over  the  others,  and  gets  itself  responded  to  first; 
but  it  loses  its  advantage  when  reaction  to  it  does  not 
bring  the  consummation  at  which  the  animal  is  aiming, 
and  some  other  feature  takes  its  turn  as  the  stimulus 
evoking  the  next  reaction.  As  related  to  the  problem  of 
selection,  the  cat's  behavior  shows:  (i)  several  possible 
reactions  to  the  same  situation;  (2)  the  occurrence  of  the 
reactions  one  at  a  time  and  not  simultaneously ;  (3)  an 
advantage  of  some  of  these  over  others;  (4)  that,  on 
being  thrown  back  defeated  from  one  line  of  attack,  the 


I08  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

cat  becomes  responsive  to  other  features  which  at  first 
did  not  arouse  reaction;  and  (5)  that  all  of  these  re- 
actions are  of  the  nature  of  preparatory  reactions,  lead- 
ing towards  the  consummation  of  escape  and  eating, 
and  that  without  the  drive  towards  this  consummatory 
reaction,  none  of  these  particular  preparatory  reactions 
would  be  evoked,  but  still  others,  such  as  lying  down  and 
purring,  might  take  their  place.  Simple  animal"  be- 
havior thus  furnishes  a  fairly  complete  outline  of  the 
psychology  of  selection  and  control;  and  it  is  only 
necessary  to  elaborate  each  of  these  five  points  and  to 
show  their  application  at  different  levels  of  behavior, 
including  the  intellectual  and  moral  life  of  man. 

MULTIPLE   POSSIBILITIES   OF   REACTION 

Evidently  there  would  be  no  room  for  selection  except 
for  the  existence  in  the  individual  of  two  or  more  mech- 
anisms responsive  to  J:he  same  object  or  situation. 
Jennings^  has  demonstrated  varied  reaction  in  the  low- 
est forms  of  animals.  Often  a  protozoan  possesses  two 
forms  of  avoiding  reaction,  the  one,  less  energetic,  con- 
sisting in  a  simple  contraction  or  bending  aside;  the 
other,  more  energetic  and  efficacious,  amounting  to 
flight.  Which  of  these  reactions  shall  actually  be 
aroused  by  a  given  stimulus  depends  not  only  on  the 
stimulus,  but  also  on  the  inner  condition  of  the  animal, 
which  in  turn  is  largely  determined  by  the  stimuli  that 
have  gone  just  before.  A  weak  but  somewhat  harmful 
stimulus  gives  at  first  the  weak  avoiding  reaction,  but 
if  repeated  at  short  intervals  comes  in  time  to  produce 
flight.    A  stimulus  that  is  harmless,  though  much  like 

^  Behavior  of  the  Lower  Organisms,  New  York,  1906. 


SELECTION  AND  CONTROL  109 

a  harmful  stimulus,  is  likely  to  give  at  first  the  weak 
avoiding  reaction,  and  then,  after  a  number  of  repeti- 
tions, no  reaction,  the  animal  having  become  adapted  to 
it.  Thus  the  animal  possesses  three  possible  responses: 
the  weak  avoiding,  the  strong  avoiding,  and  rest ;  and 
which  of  these  it  shall  put  forth  in  response  to  a  given 
stimulus  depends  not  alone  on  the  stimulus,  but  on  the 
animal's  own  internal  condition.  The  inner  condition 
thus  appears  as  a  selective  agent  in  determining  which 
reaction  shall  be  made. 

The  same  thing  appears  in  other  instances  of  animal 
behavior.  Curiosity  and  fear  may  both  be  excited  by 
the  same  strange  object;  in  fact,  you  may  sometimes 
see  an  animal  almost  balanced  between  the  two,  now 
approaching  the  object,  then  suddenly  taking  flight, 
only  to  come  back  a  moment  later  to  explore  further. 
Fighting  and  toleration,  or  food-getting  and  disgust, 
may  similarly  be  almost  balanced  against  each  other. 

A  strange  situation  always  offers  a  number  of  differ- 
ent objects  calling  for  attention  and  exploration. 
Placed  in  unfamiliar  surroundings,  a  man  notices  first 
one,  then  another  and  another  object,  thus  going 
through  varied  reaction  of  the  perceptual  sort.  At  any 
time  a  large  number  of  stimuli  act  upon  us,  through 
eyes,  ears,  and  skin ;  but  some  one  of  these  stimuli  is  at 
any  moment  attended  to  rather  than  the  others,  or  it 
may  be  that  no  one  of  the  external  stimuli  receives  at- 
tention, the  individual  being  absorbed  in  his  own 
thoughts. 

In  thinking  or  reverie,  one  idea  calls  up  another,  by 
association,  as  we  say;  the  first  idea  being  the  stimulus 
that  evokes  the  second  as  a  response.    Now  any  idea 


no  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

has  in  the  past  become  asssociated  with  a  number  of 
others,  and  can  call  up  any  one  of  them.  This  is  nicely 
brought  out  by  an  experiment  in  what  is  called  'free 
association'.  The  experimenter  instructs  his  subject  to 
respond  to  a  word  which  is  to  be  spoken  by  any  other 
word,  the  first  suggested  by  the  given  word.  If  the 
stimulus  word  given  is  'window',  the  response  made  by 
one  person  will  be  'pane',  by  another  'frame',  by  an- 
other 'curtain',  by  another  'house',  by  another  'view',  by 
another  'Gothic',  any  one  of  which  is  recognizable  as 
easily  suggested  by  the  stimulus  word,  though  only  one 
or  a  very  few  will  occur  instantly  to  any  one  person. 
In  associative  thinking,  in  fact,  varied  response  is  even 
more  in  evidence  than  elsewhere,  but  ever3rwhere  in 
animal  and  human  behavior  the  principle  holds  that 
more  than  one  response  is  available  to  any  situation, 
and  that  inner  conditions  must  be  taken  into  account 
in  explaining  the  actual  occurrence  of  one  rather  than 
another  reaction. 

THE  MUTUAL  EXCLUSION  OF  ALTERNATIVE  RESPONSES 

Though  more  than  one  response  to  a  stimulus  or 
complex  of  stimuli  is  possible,  only  one,  as  a  general 
principle,  is  actually  evoked  at  a  given  instant.  The 
case  in  which  this  principle  is  least  clear  is  that  of  free 
association ,  j  ust  mentioned .  Here  it  sometimes  happens 
that  more  than  one  response  word  is  suggested  at  the 
same  instant,  or  so  nearly  at  the  same  instant  as  to  seem 
so,  introspectively.  Yet  even  here  it  is  evident  that 
many  responses  that  are  perfectly  possible  for  the  indi- 
vidual are  actually  not  aroused  at  a  given  moment. 
The  opposite   principle,   which  might   from   physical 


SELECTION  AND  CONTROL  lU 

analogy  be  expected  to  hold,  according  to  which  every 
response  that  has  become  linked  with  the  stimulus 
word  should  be  evoked,  some,  perhaps,  strongly  and 
others  weakly,  in  accordance  with  the  closeness  of  the 
linkage — this  principle  does  not  hold  at  all,  but  there 
is  at  least  a  close  approximation  to  the  principle  first 
stated.  In  the  protozoan,  either  the  strong  or  the  weak 
avoiding  reaction,  or  no  reaction,  is  at  any  moment 
aroused;  in  the  cat  in  the  puzzle-box,  a  succession  of 
reactions  appears,  one  at  a  time ;  in  the  animal  balanced 
between  fear  and  curiosity,  one  or  the  other  tendency 
has  at  any  instant  the  advantage  and  the  other  is  for 
that  instant  suppressed. 

The  mutual  exclusion  of  alternative  reactions  appears 
very  clearly  in  the  sphere  of  reflex  action.  Let  the 
hinder  part  of  a  dog  be  rendered  a  purely  reflex  machine 
by  a  cut  across  the  spinal  cord,  separating  the  lower 
or  rear  half  of  it  from  the  influence  of  the  brain.  This 
'spinal  animal'  shows  the  reflexes  in  a  relatively  pure 
and  simple  condition,  undisturbed  and  ungovemed  by 
the  brain.  If  now  one  hind  paw  is  pinched,  that  paw  is 
drawn  up,  while  the  other  leg  is  extended,  but  if  both 
paws  are  pinched  at  the  same  time,  both  are  not  drawn 
up,  but  one  or  the  other  is  drawn  up  and  the  other 
extended — in  other  words,  one  of  the  two  compound 
reflexes  that  are  simultaneously  excited  is  actually 
evoked  and  the  other  is  excluded.  A  somewhat  more 
complex  reflex  is  that  of  scratching  when  the  flank  is 
irritated.  If  the  right  flank  is  irritated,  the  right  hind 
leg  is  brought  up  and  scratches,  while  the  left  hind  leg 
is  extended  and  supports  the  trunk  during  the  scratch- 
ing movement.     If  both  flanks  are  simultaneously  ir- 


112  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

ritated,  it  would  be  impossible  to  execute  both  scratch- 
ing movements,  right  and  left,  simultaneously,  since 
either  movement  requires  the  leg  that  is  not  scratching 
to  be  extended.  It  is  impossible,  we  say;  but  physically 
it  is  impossible  only  in  the  sense  that  both  movements 
could  not  be  efficiently  carried  out  together,  and  we 
might  expect  the  result  of  simultaneous  excitation  of 
both  to  be  a  sort  of  compromise,  analogous  to  the  par- 
allelogram of  forces,  giving  a  half-way  position  and 
action  of  each  leg.  No  such  compromise  occurs — and  it 
is  one  of  the  fundamental  peculiarities  of  animal 
mechanics  that  it  does  not  occur — but  what  happens  is 
that  either  the  right  or  the  left  leg  will  be  brought  up 
and  scratch,  while  the  other  is  extended.  If,  however, 
the  bilateral  irritation  continues,  this  first  response 
gives  way  suddenly,  after  a  time,  to  the  opposite.  In 
other  words,  one  of  the  two  possible  responses  to  the 
situation  is  executed  at  any  one  time,  and  the  other 
cut  out  or  inhibited ;  but,  if  the  situation  continues  un- 
changed, there  is  a  shift,  the  inhibited  response  having 
its  turn,  while  the  other  is  now  inhibited. 

This  principle  of  the  reciprocal  inhibition  of  antagon- 
istic reactions  is  one  of  the  important  contributions  of 
Sherrington  1  to  the  knowledge  of  reflex  action.  It  is 
not  the  only  principle  that  he  found  operative.  Some- 
times two  reflexes  are  aroused  together,  but  that  is  when 
they  work  together  harmoniously,  and  in  fact  unite  to 
form  a  compound  reflex.  Both  of  these  principles — 
that  of  the  reciprocal  inhibition  of  antagonistic  reactions, 
and  that  of  the  union  of  allied  or  harmonious  reactions 
— can  be  observed  in  mental  as  well  as  in  reflex  action. 

1  See  his  Integrative  Action  of  the  Nervous  System,  New  York,  1906. 


SELECTION  AND  CONTROL  1 13 

One  instance  that  is  not  far  removed  from  the  reflex 
level  is  seen  in  the  movements  of  the  eyes  towards  ob- 
jects in  the  field  of  view — in  'looking  at'  objects.  An 
object  seen  off  to  the  side,  in  'indirect  vision',  acts  as 
a  stimulus  to  turn  the  eyes  in  its  direction,  by  which 
motion  the  object  comes  into  clear  vision.  Very  often 
it  happens  that  there  are  two  objects  in  the  field  of  view, 
one  to  the  right  and  the  other  to  the  left,  simultaneously 
attracting  the  eye.  If  the  eye  followed  the  law  of  the 
parallelogram  of  forces,  it  would  remain  staring  at  some 
point  intermediate  between  the  two  that  had  attracted 
it.  What  it  does  is  to  disregard  one  object,  for  the 
moment,  at  least,  and  turn  towards  the  other.  After 
this  is  examined,  the  object  at  first  neglected  may  have 
its  turn.  These  eye  movements  are  a  type  of  the  ex- 
ploratory reaction ;  and  what  is  true  of  this  case  is  true 
generally  of  the  exploration  of  a  complex  situation,  or, 
as  we  may  otherwise  express  it,  of  attention  to  a  com- 
plex situation.  Of  all  the  stimuli  that  simultaneously 
tend  to  attract  attention,  only  one  gets  attended  to  at 
any  instant,  but  several  do  so  successively.  The  other 
principle,  indeed,  of  union  of  harmonious  responses, 
comes  also  into  play  in  the  sphere  of  attention,  in  that 
two  objects  can  be  attended  to  at  once,  provided  they 
can  be  perceived  as  parts  of  a  unitary  though  compound 
object. 

The  two  principles  come  out  clearly  in  the  case  of 
binocular  vision.  The  two  eyes,  being  in  slightly  differ- 
ent places,  get  different  views  of  any  near-by  solid  ob- 
ject, but  we  do  not  ordinarily  notice  these  two  appear- 
ances, but,  combining  them,  perceive  a  single  object  so 
placed  in  space  as  to  give  the  two  views  to  the  two  eyes. 


114 


DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 


If,  however,  the  stimuli  affecting  the  two  eyes  are  not 
such  as  will  unite  to  give  the  perception  of  a  single  ob- 
ject, we  get  reciprocal  inhibition,  or,  as  it  is  here  called, 
rivalry.  Let  a  red  glass  be  held  before  one  eye  and  a 
green  glass  before  the  other,  and  let  the  eyes  be  directed 
towards  a  white  wall.  Then,  according  to  the  stimuli 
affecting  our  eyes,  we  should  see  a  wall  that  is  red  and 
green  at  the  same  time  and  place ;  but  such  a  combina- 
tion as  this  we  are  unable  to  make.   What  we  see  is,  first, 


THE  STAIRCASE  FIGURE 


a  red  wall,  the  green  entirely  disappearing,  and  then, 
after  a  time,  a  green  wall,  the  red  disappearing;  and  so 
on  alternately.  Our  visual  apparatus  behaves  in  the 
same  way  as  the  spinal  animal  stimulated  at  once  to 
right  and  left  scratchings. 

Another  striking  instance  of  the  same  thing  is  af- 
forded by  what  are  called  ambiguous  figures,  many  of 
which  are  drawings  easily  suggesting  solid  objects,  but 
drawn  without  perspective,  and  equally  well  fitted  to 
represent  either  of  two  different  solids.    As  you  exam- 


SELECTION  AND  CONTROL  1 15 

ine  such  a  drawing,  you  see  it  first  as  one  of  the  solid 
objects  and  then  as  the  other,  the  two  alternating  as  in 
the  case  of  binocular  rivalry.  The  simplest  ambiguous 
figure  is  perhaps  the  dot  figure,  the  dots  being  either 
regularly  or  irregularly  arranged.  In  either  case,  the 
dots,  as  you  examine  them,  fall  into  patterns,  and  the 
patterns  change  from  moment  to  moment.  You  make, 
that  is  to  say,  a  variety  of  perceptual  reactions  to  the 
same  continuing  situation,  but  you  make  only  one  at 
a  time.    These  instances  of  alternating  and  mutually 


TWO  DOT  FIGURES 

exclusive  perceptions  are  curiosities,  but  in  a  general 
way  they  are  typical  of  all  perception,  since  always  the 
situation  confronting  the  observer  is  capable  of  arous- 
ing different  percepts,  only  one  of  which  occurs  at  any 
one  moment,  though  several  may  occur  in  succession. 

ADVANTAGE  POSSESSED  BY  ONE  ALTERNATIVE 
REACTION  OVER  THE  OTHERS 

That  one  of  the  various  alternative  reactions  which  is 
first  evoked  evidently  has  a  certain  advantage  over  the 
others,  and  the  question  arises  as  to  what  gives  it  this 


Ii6  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

advantage.    When  a  n\imber  of  stimuli  are  acting  simul- 
taneously on  a  man  or  animal,  the  most  intense  of  them 
has  an  advantage  over  the  others,  and  is  likely  to  be 
the  first  noticed  and  reacted  to.    A  moving  object  has 
an  advantage  over  one  that  is  at  rest ;  a  sudden  stimulus 
over  one  that  has  continued  for  some  time  with  no 
change,  or  only  a  gradual  change;   certain  colors  have 
an  advantage  over  others  that  are  not  so  'striking',  and 
certain  objects,  in  the  case  of  the  human  child  especially 
human  faces,  have  an  advantage  over  other  objects. 
All  this  by  force  of  original  nature. 
The  advantage  of  one  reaction  over  another  must  be 
sought  on  the  side  of  the  reaction  as  well  as  on  that  of 
the  stimulus.     Certain  reactions  are  more  imperative 
than  others,  and  have  the  'right  of  way'  through  the 
nerve  centers.    The  avoiding  or  self -protective  reactions 
have  an  advantage  over  others,  so  that  a  painful  or 
threatening  object  usually  gets  itself  reacted  to  in  pref- 
erence to  any  other  stimulus  that  may  be  present.    Thus 
a  slight  rustling  noise  may  get  a  response  in  preference 
to  bright  or  otherwise  interesting  objects.     The  prin- 
ciple of  economy  also  makes  its  appearance  here,  as 
shown  by  the  fact  that  a  stimulus  will  ordinarily  evoke 
a  reaction  of  moderate  strength  before  it  can  elicit  one 
of  great  force.     This  was  seen  in  the  behavior  of  the 
protozoan  when  affected  by  a  harmful  stimulus;    the 
first  reaction  called  out  was  the  weak  avoiding  reaction, 
and  the  strong  reaction  only  occurred  when  the  weak 
did  not  suffice.     In  general,  the  strength  of  a  reaction 
is  apt  to  be  more  or  less  proportional  to  the  strength  of 
the  stimulus,  so  that  for  any  strength  of  stimulus,  a  re- 
action of  corresponding  force  will  have  the  advantage. 


SELECTION  AND  CONTROL  I17 

Besides  these  advantages  naturally  possessed  by  one 
stimulus  or  reaction  over  another,  there  are  other  ad- 
vantages due  to  training.  When  two  reactions  have 
become  attached  to  the  same  stimulus,  one  may  be 
more  strongly  attached  to  it  than  the  other.  The  con- 
nection between  stimulus  and  response  is  strengthened 
by  vigorous  exercise  of  the  connection,  by  frequent 
exercise  of  the  connection,  and  by  recent  exercise  of  the 
connection.  Each  of  these  factors  has  something  to  do 
with  the  strength  of  the  connection  between  stimulus 
and  response,  and  their  sum  total  determines  the  total 
advantage  possessed  by  one  or  another  response  to  the 
same  stimulus,  so  far  as  this  advantage  is  determined  by 
the  'law  of  exercise'.  Besides  this,  the  'law  of  effect' 
must  also  be  taken  into  account.  When  one  of  two 
possible  reactions  to  a  given  stimulus  has  in  the  past 
led  to  punishment,  that  response  is  placed  at  a  disad- 
vantage as  compared  with  the  other  which  has  not  been 
punished.  When  the  reaction  to  a  stimulus,  however 
frequently  made  in  the  past,  has  given  way  to  a  condi- 
tion of  negative  adaptation,  that  stimulus  is  placed  in 
a  position  of  disadvantage  as  compared  with  a  stimulus 
to  which  adaptation  has  not  occurred.  When  reaction 
to  one  feature  of  a  situation  has  resulted  in  a  check  or 
failure,  that  stimulus  is  placed  in  a  position  of  disad- 
vantage ;  and  when  reaction  to  a  particular  feature  has 
brought  success  and  satisfaction,  that  reaction  has  the 
advantage  over  all  others  that  are  capable  of  being 
aroused  by  the  given  situation.  Thus  the  advantage 
of  one  possible  reaction  over  another,  due  to  the  present 
strength  of  the  connection  between  situation  and  re- 


Ii8  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

sponse,  is  determined  in  a  very  complex  way  by  the 
original  nature  and  past  history  of  the  individual. 

SHIFTING  OF  ADVANTAGE  FROM   ONE  REACTION 
TO  ANOTHER 

The  initial  advantage  possessed  by  one  reaction  may 
disappear  quickly  as  the  situation  continues  unchanged, 
and  thus  the  phenomenon  of  varied  reaction  be  produced. 

The  simplest  case  of  this  is  perhaps  to  be  found  in 
the  often-mentioned  negative  adaptation  to  a  continued 
or  frequently  repeated  stimulus.  A  noise  which  at 
first  startles  us,  i.  e.,  arouses  that  peculiar  form  of  the 
attentive  or  exploratory  reaction  known  as  the  reflex 
start,  no  longer  arouses  this  reaction  if  immediately 
repeated,  and  comes  soon  to  be  altogether  overlooked. 
At  first  possessing  an  advantage  over  other  stimuli,  it 
quickly  loses  this  advantage.  An  object  which  at  its 
first  appearance  attracts  the  eye  in  preference  to  any 
other  object  in  the  field  of  view  cannot  hold  the  atten- 
tion for  long  unless  it  is  a  complex  or  moving  object 
and  so  capable  of  arousing  a  number  of  different  per- 
ceptual reactions — in  other  words,  the  attention  is  not 
held  for  long  by  a  simple  and  unvarying  object.  We 
become  adapted  to  it,  and  something  else  gets  the  ad- 
vantage and  arouses  attention  in  its  turn. 

This  fact  appears  with  most  precision  in  the  rivalry 
between  the  two  contrasting  fields  of  view,  or  in  that 
between  the  two  interpretations  of  an  ambiguous  fig- 
ure. In  binocular  rivalry,  the  more  brilliant  or  striking 
color  has  at  first  the  advantage,  and  excludes  the  other 
from  conscious  perception ;  but  shortly  the  latter  gains 
the  advantage  and  excludes  the  former.     The   first 


SELECTION  AND  CONTROL  II9 

reaction  has  become  fatigued,  or  it  might  be  better  to 
say  that  negative  adaptation  has  set  in  against  it.  In 
ambiguous  figures,  the  law  of  past  exercise  comes  first 
into  play,  and  the  figure  is  perceived  as  the  object  most 
frequently  presenting  this  appearance;  but  again  fa- 
tigue or  adaptation  enters,  and  the  most  usual  interpre- 
tation loses  its  advantage,  and  gives  way  for  a  time  to 
the  less  usual,  only  to  reassert  itself  as  soon  as  fatigue 
or  adaptation  has  operated  to  the  disadvantage  of  the 
latter.  Adaptation  is  probably  a  better  concept  to 
work  with  here  than  fatigue ;  at  least,  in  some  cases  the 
dropping  out  of  consciousness  of  an  object  that  was 
at  first  perceived  can  scarcely  be  regarded  as  a  case  of 
fatigue.  When  the  ticking  of  the  clock,  to  which  I  have 
become  adapted,  suddenly  ceases,  I  'wake  up'  with  a 
start,  and  a  sense  that  something,  I  do  not  know  what, 
has  happened.  This  could  scarcely  occur  if  I  had  sim- 
ply become  fatigued  to  the  recurring  noise,  for  fatigue 
would  mean  that  my  mechanism  for  dealing  with  the 
noise  had  been  thrown  out  of  function — its  fuses  burned 
out,  as  it  were — and  then  cessation  of  the  stimulus 
would  produce  no  sudden  response,  but  simply  give  an 
opportunity  for  the  gradual  recovery  of  the  fatigued 
mechanism.  But  adaptation  to  the  noise  might  very 
well  mean  that  some  mechanism  was  dealing  with  it 
in  a  way  not  to  interfere  with  other,  more  conscious 
processes,  but  rising  to  meet  it  rhythmically,  in  time 
with  its  periodical  recurrence;  and  that,  on  the  cessa- 
tion of  the  noise,  this  mechanism,  not  receiving  the 
stimulus  which  it  was  'rising  to  meet',  gave  a  sort  of 
jolt  to  the  other  active  mechanisms  and  so  produced  a 
sudden  disturbance  in  their  action.    However  this  may 


120  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

be,  fatigue  or  else  adaptation  seems  a  good  explanation 
of  very  many  cases  of  displacement  of  advantage  from 
one  stimulus  to  another,  and  from  one  reaction  to  an- 
other. 

Another  important  cause  of  shifting  from  one  reaction 
to  another  has  already  been  mentioned  in  connection 
with  the  subject  of  learning.  When  the  first  reaction 
made  results  in  pain  or  a  check,  it  loses  its  advantage 
for  the  moment,  at  least,  and  gives  way  to  some  other 
reaction. 

THE  DRIVE  AS   SELECTIVE  AGENCY 

The  most  characteristic  thing  about  selection  is 
brought  home  to  us  on  considering  attentively  this  last- 
mentioned  case,  in  which  a  check  acts  to  deprive  one 
tendency  to  action  of  its  initial  advantage  and  transfer 
this  advantage  to  another  tendency.  A  check  implies 
a  trend  in  a  certain  direction.  Failure  implies  a  goal 
that  is  not  reached.  When  the  cat,  squeezing  between 
the  bars  of  a  cage  and  meeting  resistance,  turns  to 
some  other  point  of  attack,  it  is  because,  in  common 
speech,  it  is  trying  to  get  out.  It  is  this  tendency  to- 
wards escape  and  securing  the  food  placed  outside — 
whatever  form  the  tendency  may  take  in  the  cat's  con- 
sciousness— that  controls  its  reactions  to  the  various 
features  of  the  situation  confronting  it.  Without  this 
tendency,  it  would  not  attack  the  parts  of  the  cage  as  it 
does,  nor  restlessly  shift  from  one  reaction  to  another 
till  some  one  gave  success.  This  tendency  to  escape  is 
a  mechanism  aroused  by  the  stimulus  of  confinement 
with  food  outside;  once  aroused  and  not  immediately 
satisfied,  it  acts  as  a  drive  to  the  mechanisms  that  pro- 


SELECTION  AND  CONTROL  I2I 

duce  the  various  specific  reactions  of  the  cat  to  different 
parts  of  the  cage.  It  acts  as  a  reinforcement  to  certain 
reactions,  selecting  them  one  after  another;  and  it  acts 
as  an  inhibition  to  other  reactions,  preventing  the  cat, 
for  example,  from  reacting  to  a  convenient  spot  by 
lying  down  there.  The  drive  acts  as  a  selective  agency, 
as  a  controlling  agency. 

The  same  thing  is  seen  in  another  animal  experiment 
already  described.  A  rat,  on  being  first  placed  in  a 
strange  maze,  reacts  by  exploration ;  after  once  finding 
food,  it  behaves  in  quite  a  different  way,  without  ran- 
dom exploration,  but  with  urgency  and  haste.  It  has 
got  a  drive  which  eliminates  otherwise  preferred  re- 
actions and  greatly  increases  the  energy  of  behavior. 

The  selective  force  of  drives  is  seen  in  all  phases  of 
human  behavior,  and  nowhere  more  clearly  than  in 
observation  and  mental  work. 

What  shall  be  observed  in  a  complex  presented  situ- 
ation is  determined  not  only  by  such  factors  as  intensity, 
suddenness,  and  movement  of  a  stimulus  and  pre- 
formed habits  of  attention,  but  very  much  by  the  in- 
terest that  is  momentarily  dominant.  The  present 
interest  is  a  drive  selecting  certain  objects  for  observa- 
tion. Interest  sometimes  takes  the  definite  form  of  a 
question,  and  objects  which  have  been  overlooked  a 
hundred  times  will  come  into  notice  when  a  question  is 
asked  regarding  them.  Questions  suggested  or  sug- 
gesting themselves  to  the  beginner  in  botany,  for  in- 
stance, cause  him  to  see  plants  and  parts  of  plants  that 
have  been  before  him  all  his  life  but  never  observed 
before.  The  importance  of  the  question  as  a  spur  to 
accuracy  of  observation  is  fully  recognized  in  the  sci- 


122  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

ences ;  to  be  sure  of  your  fact  you  must  have  been  ready 
and  looking  for  it,  an  unprepared  observation  being 
generally  unreliable.  We  do  not  become  scientific 
observers  by  simply  going  out  into  the  presence  of 
nature  with  the  general  intention  of  observing,  but  by 
first  getting  some  question  in  mind  which  we  can  answer 
by  observation  of  nature.  General  familiarity  with  a 
thing,  in  the  sense  of  having  lived  with  it,  does  not 
qualify  one  as  a  scientific  expert  regarding  that  thing. 
One  may  prove  to  have  little  exact  knowledge  regarding 
a  familiar  thing,  simply  because  one  has  been  satisfied 
with  a  very  summary  observation  of  it  and  has  taken 
it  thenceforward  as  a  'matter  of  course'.  The  question, 
then,  is  decidedly  to  be  called  a  drive ;  it  arouses  certain 
activities  which  would  not  be  aroused  by  the  external 
objects  alone.  It  reinforces  the  effect  of  certain  objects 
and  incidentally  inhibits  the  effect  of  other  objects,  for 
observation  sharpened  by  a  question  is  keen  only  for 
the  answer  to  that  question  and  neglectful  of  whatever 
is  irrelevant  to  it. 

Instead  of  speaking  of  the  question  as  the  driving 
force  in  keen  observation,  we  might  have  said  that  curi- 
osity was  the  driving  force;  but  it  is  not  curiosity  as 
a  general  motive,  but  curiosity  regarding  some  partic- 
ular thing.  'Curiosity'  sounds  like  a  general  motive 
force  leading  to  observation  of  anything  and  every- 
thing. Now  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  general  explor- 
atory tendency,  leading  the  child,  especially,  to  go  out 
in  search  of  the  novel.  But  the  essence  of  interests  and 
questions  is  to  be  specific.  It  is  the  capacity  to  become 
interested  in  certain  classes  of  object,  and  in  certain 
problems  regarding  objects,  that  leads  to  systematic 


SELECTION  AND  CONTROL  123 

and  painstaking  observation.  The  motive  force  leading 
to  the  great  activity  of  the  scientific  observer  is  not 
some  vague  force  in  the  background,  but  is  bound  up 
with  the  actual  perception  and  understanding  of  ob- 
jects. That  is  to  say,  the  interest  in  a  class  of  objects 
is  inherent  in  the  mechanism  for  dealing  with  that  class 
of  objects.  It  is  not  a  general  curiosity,  but  interest 
awakened  in  a  certain  class  of  objects,  that  furnishes  the 
drive  for  observation. 

In  mental  work,  the  factor  of  selection  is  very  impor- 
tant. Leaving  to  the  next  chapter  the  more  original 
sort  of  thinking,  we  shall  consider  here  the  routine  and 
smooth-running  forms  of  mental  activity.  Habit  and 
previously  formed  associations  are  important  here,  and 
the  conclusion  might  easily  be  suggested  that  these 
forms  of  mental  work  were  purely  automatic  responses 
to  presented  situations,  requiring  no  inner  drive  or 
selective  agency.  This  is  very  far  from  being  true.  The 
multiplication  and  addition  tables  become  to  the  well- 
trained  computer  very  nearly  automatic ;  but  the  point 
is  that  any  two  numbers,  as  eight  and  five,  have  asso- 
ciations both  with  their  sum  and  with  their  product. 
It  is  a  case  of  alternative  reactions,  and  the  question  is 
how  the  computer  manages  to  use  the  right  set  of 
associations  for  the  work  in  hand.  If  you  have  before 
you  several  pairs  of  one-place  numbers  arranged  in  the 
form  of  examples  in  addition  or  multiplication,  and  say 
to  yourself,  'Add  these',  you  find  that  the  sums  imme- 
diately come  to  mind  on  looking  at  the  examples;  but 
if  you  say  to  yourself,  'Multiply  these',  the  same  ex- 
amples call  up  the  products.  Evidently  the  intention 
of  adding  or  of  multiplying  switches  in  one  set  of  asso- 


124  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

ciations  and  switches  out  the  other.  In  such  cases  the 
selective  agency  is  often  called  the  'mental  set'  or  ad- 
justment. The  arithmetical  mechanism  of  the  com- 
puter is  an  adjustable  machine  that  can  be  set  for  any 
one  of  several  operations.  When  an  adjustment  has 
been  well  trained,  it  becomes  itself  almost  automatic 
and  works  without  coming  much  to  consciousness,  but 
it  is  none  the  less  effective.  The  mental  set,  or  inten- 
tion of  performing  a  certain  operation  or  solving  a 
certain  problem,  is  a  drive,  reinforcing  certain  associ- 
ative connections  and  inhibiting  others,  and  thus  exert- 
ing a  selective  influence. 

In  reading,  the  context  already  taken  in  by  the 
reader  is  a  selective  agency,  determining  which  of  sev- 
eral familiar  meanings  a  given  word  shall  suggest,  and 
doing  its  work  so  well  that  generally  only  the  appro- 
priate meaning  occurs  to  mind  at  all.  Here  is  a  word 
that  has  half-a-dozen  familiar  meanings.  Standing 
alone,  it  would  suggest  one  or  another  of  them,  accord- 
ing to  the  relative  strength  of  the  associations  as  de- 
termined by  past  exercise,  etc.  But  in  context  it  calls 
up  one  particular  meaning  without  reference  to  the 
relative  strength  of  the  various  associations,  provided, 
of  course,  that  all  are  sufficiently  strong  to  work  easily. 
The  determining  factor  is  not  the  past  history  of  the 
associations,  but  the  present  context.  Nowhere  is  the 
selective  factor  more  in  evidence  than  in  reading  a  story 
or  watching  a  play.  The  situation  as  it  has  gradually 
taken  shape  in  the  mind  of  the  reader  or  spectator  gives 
the  right  interpretation  to  words  and  actions  that, 
apart  from  their  context,  might  have  a  variety  of  mean- 
ings.     Comprehension   of   the   general   situation   is   a 


SELECTION  AND  CONTROL  125 

drive,  producing  greater  interest  and  mental  activity 
on  the  part  of  the  observer  than  could  possibly  be 
aroused  in  him  by  isolated  words  or  actions,  and  also 
selecting  his  associative  reactions  to  them.  Two  effects 
of  a  drive  are  thus  brought  to  light:  general  stimulus 
to  activity,  and  selection  of  the  particular  activity  that 
shall  become  active. 

In  motor  behavior  and  the  life  of  action  generally, 
these  two  effects  of  the  drive  are  in  evidence.  Some- 
thing analogous  to  the  'context'  operates  to  select  from 
among  the  large  repertory  of  acts  those  that  fit  the 
case.  The  ball  player  could  do  many  things  with  the 
ball  that  has  come  to  him;  but  unless  he  'loses  his 
head',  he  does  the  one  thing  that  the  whole  situation 
demands.  Decorum  means  the  same  kind  of  control 
exerted  over  action  by  perception  of  what  the  situation 
demands.  Understanding  the  state  of  affairs  means  a 
certain  'frame  of  mind'  that  favors  certain  acts  and 
thrusts  others  aside.  Undoubtedly  the  factor  of  selec- 
tion operates  in  much  the  same  way  in  the  broader  con- 
duct of  life  as  it  does  in  the  comparatively  narrow 
activities,  such  as  computing,  where  its  effects  can  be 
definitely  noticed. 

In  reviewing  this  discussion  of  the  factor  of  selection, 
the  reader  will  be  left  with  the  impression  that  much  has 
been  said  of  selection  and  its  manner  of  working,  but 
little  of  that  which  selects.  What  is  the  selective 
agency?  Now  the  gist  of  the  whole  discussion  is  that 
there  is  no  agency  exclusively  devoted  to  selection,  no 
factor  of  selection  that  is  nothing  more  than  that.  A 
tendency  towards  some  consummatory  reaction  acts  as 
a  selective  agency,  but  it  is  at  the  same  time  a  tendency 


126  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

towards  a  definite  end.  An  interest  acts  as  a  selective 
agency,  but  it  is  also  an  interest  in  some  specific  thing 
or  class  of  things.  A  question  acts  as  a  selective  agency, 
but  a  question  has  always  a  specific  content.  A  con- 
text acts  as  a  selective  agency,  but  the  context  means  a 
concrete  situation,  with  characteristics  peculiar  to  it- 
self. Selective  agencies  are  many,  each  of  them  being  a 
special  tendency  or  interest.  Selectiveness  is  a  property 
of  any  tendency  or  interest,  and  not  the  property  of 
some  one  general  agency  existing  alongside  of  the  specific 
tendencies.  This  is  but  to  repeat  what  has  been  said 
before,  to  the  efTect  that  every  drive  is  also  a  mechanism, 
and  that  any  mechanism  may  conceivably  be  a  drive. 
This  doctrine  does  not,  however,  imply,  as  might  ap- 
pear at  first  thought,  that  the  personality  is  a  mere  col- 
lection of  tendencies,  with  no  organization  and  no  con- 
trol. Some  tendencies  and  interests  are  stronger  than 
others  in  the  individual,  and  a  well-integrated  personal- 
ity is  organized  about  its  master  motives,  these  acting 
as  selective  agencies  with  rCvSpect  to  other  tendencies. 
Few  personalities  are  so  thoroughly  integrated  that 
tendencies  usually  subordinated  may  not  occasionally 
break  away  from  control,  and  have  things  their  own 
way  for  a  time,  selecting  to  suit  themselves  and  in  op- 
position to  the  usual  master  motives.  Then  follow 
regrets  and  sense  of  failure  and  an  attempt  to  fortify 
the  master  motives  against  the  time  when  the  contrary 
tendencies  shall  again  seek  to  assert  themselves.  There 
is  perhaps  no  royal  road  to  complete  integration  of  the 
personality,  but  some  wisdom  can  be  gleaned  from  the 
fact  that  the  master  motives  are  not  mere  abstract 
selective  and  controlling  agencies,  but  are  interests  with 


SELECTION  AND  CONTROL  127 

definite  content.  To  strengthen  a  motive  is  then  to 
become  more  interested  in  the  objects  towards  which 
that  motive  is  directed.  For  example:  to  master  the 
tendencies  to  irritation  that  often  disturb  family  life, 
the  best  hint  is  to  become  interested  in  the  other  side  of 
the  case,  to  look  at  the  matters  that  are  likely  to  be  in 
dispute  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  other  party.  You 
will  experience  a  certain  inner  resistance  when  you  at- 
tempt to  do  this.  There  is  a  sense  of  humiliation  and 
de-personalization  in  attempting  to  take  another's  point 
of  view,  arising  from  the  fact  that  one's  personality  is 
shaped  largely  by  antithesis  with  other  persons.  We 
'thank  God  that  we  are  not  as  other  men  are'.  But 
getting  interested  in  another  person's  interests  may 
rnean  the  expansion  of  one's  own  personality,  and  the 
acquisition  of  master  motives  suited  to  act  as  selective 
agencies  in  the  life  of  a  group  of  persons. 


VI 

THE  FACTOR  OF  ORIGINALITY 

A  dynamic  psychology  that  confined  its  attention  to 
instinctive  and  habitual  processes,  even  with  due  em- 
phasis on  the  selective  factor,  would  not  get  beyond  the 
more  routine  sort  of  behavior  and  mental  work,  and 
would  create  the  suspicion  of  being  a  very  one-.sided 
affair.  Certainly,  if  we  are  to  understand  the  workings 
of  the  mind,  we  must  understand  the  workings  of  those 
who  distinctly  possess  minds:  the  Shakespeares  and 
Newtons  and  Beethovens  and  Napoleons — the  original 
geniuses  in  different  fields  of  human  activity.  Inven- 
tion, discovery,  artistic  creation,  independent  thinking 
and  acting  are  considered  to  be  the  special  marks  of 
mentality;  it  is  imperative,  accordingly,  that  we  should 
here  make  some  attempt  to  understand  them. 

The  great  achievements  of  genius  can  only  be  exam- 
ined from  afar,  since  it  is  unlikely  that  a  great  creative 
act  will  ever  come  directly  under  the  eye  of  the  psychol- 
ogist. Even  if  a  genius  should  turn  psychologist,  he 
would  find  it  difficult  to  come  to  close  quarters  with  his 
great  moments;  since  at  such  moments  he  would  be 
carried  away  by  the  current  of  his  thoughts,  and  not  dis- 
posed to  stop  for  a  psychological  observation.  Real 
acts  of  genius  would  be  as  difficult  as  possible  to  intro- 
spect. So  at  least  one  imagines  from  the  intense  absorp- 
tion that  seems  to  be  characteristic  of  really  creative 
activity.    Newton  boiling  his  watch  instead  of  the  egg 


FACTOR  OF  ORIGINALITY  129 

brought  him  for  lunch,  Gauss  so  absorbed  in  his  mathe- 
matics for  many  hours  at  a  stretch  that  even  serious 
personal  news  could  not  attract  his  attention — ^whether 
or  not  these  incidents  are  authentic — may  fairly  be 
taken  as  characteristic  of  the  state  of  mind  of  highly 
original  production.  Another  characteristic,  often  veri- 
fied in  writers  and  composers,  is  an  amazing  speed  of 
action  at  times  of  creative  production.  It  may  take 
a  long  time  to  get  started,  but,  once  in  swing,  production 
goes  forward  rapidly.  Another  noteworthy  trait  of  the 
great  genius  is  the  quantity  of  his  production:  almost 
every  really  great  painter,  or  composer,  or  writer,  or 
discoverer,  or  inventor,  has  produced  a  surprising  num- 
ber of  works.  Such  industry  points  to  the  presence  of  a 
strong  drive. 

Another  thing  worth  noting  is  that  each  genius  has 
his  own  special  line  of  production.  Some  have  been 
productive  in  two  related  lines,  as  painting  and  sculp- 
ture, or  even  generalship  and  government,  or  physics 
and  mathematics.  Sometimes  a  genius  productive  in 
one  line  has  produced  interesting,  though  not  really 
important,  works  in  quite  a  different  line — Goethe's 
theory  of  colors,  Caesar's  works  on  grammar.  It  is 
really  not  a  little  remarkable  that  the  great  men  of  the 
earth  are  noted  each  for  one,  or  at  most  two  closely 
related  sorts  of  achievement.  It  may  mean  the  spe- 
cialization of  native  gifts.  Probably  it  does  mean  that 
in  part;  probably  Shakespeare  could  not  have  written 
Bacon's  works,  nor  Bacon  Shakespeare's,  because  their 
natural  gifts  lay  in  different  directions.  Yet  the  original 
genius  often  shows  originality  in  more  than  one  field, 
and  the  reason  why  he  does  not  reach  a  high  level  of 


130  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

production  in  more  than  one  is  largely  lack  of  time. 
One  may,  as  a  tyro,  be  original  in  attitude,  but  not  in 
accomplishment.  One  needs  to  appropriate  the  mate- 
rials already  present  in  a  science  or  art  before  being 
able  to  make  significant  additions  to  it.  This  is  easily 
illustrated  by  the  history  of  any  science  or  art.  Great 
artists  seldom  occur  sporadically.  What  we  find  in  the 
history  of  art — as  in  the  case  of  Greek  drama,  or  of 
Gothic  architecture,  or  of  modern  music — is  a  develop- 
ment from  crude  and  simple  beginnings  to  ever  greater 
complexity,  richness,  and  refinement,  each  creative  artist 
basing  his  work  on  that  which  immediately  precedes 
him,  till,  it  would  seem,  a  limit  is  reached,  and  interest 
turns  to  some  new  style  or  new  form  of  art.  In  science 
and  invention,  it  is  even  more  obvious  that,  however 
original  a  mind  may  be,  it  works  out  from  the  assimi- 
lated achievements  of  its  predecessors. 

Another  fact  that  stands  out  in  the  biographies  of 
great  geniuses  is  their  early  age  at  the  time  of  their 
greatest  originality.  Alexander  had  finished  his  mar- 
vellous career  at  the  age  of  thirty-three.  Caesar,  after 
a  successful  career  as  a  politician,  struck  out  as  a  mili- 
tary genius  at  the  exceptionally  advanced  age  of  forty. 
Napoleon  became  chief  of  the  French  armies  at  twenty- 
seven,  and  fought  his  most  successful  campaigns  within 
the  next  ten  years.  Newton  published  his  New  Theory 
of  Light  and  Colors,  one  of  his  most  original  works,  at 
the  age  of  thirty.  Helmholtz's  greatest  work  began  to 
appear  in  print  when  he  was  thirty-five.  Beethoven's 
Third  Symphony  was  composed  when  he  was  thirty- 
four,  and  his  Fifth  when  he  was  thirty-six.  Shake- 
speare began  producing  his  plays  at  about  twenty-seven, 


FACTOR  OF  ORIGINALITY  131 

reached  the  level  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  at  thirty,  Julius 
Ccesar  at  thirty-five,  Hamlet  at  thirty-seven,  and  had 
written  nearly  all  by  the  time  he  was  forty.  Darwin's 
great  idea  took  shape  in  his  mind  when  he  was  about 
twenty-five,  though  he  devoted  twenty  years  to  estab- 
lishing it  before  giving  it  to  the  public.  These  cases  are 
not  exceptional  in  the  early  age  of  their  great  ideas. 
We  are  prone  to  think  of  great  men  as  oldish  men,  be- 
cause the  portraits  of  them  were  usually  made  after 
their  fame  had  become  assured;  but  portraits  of  them 
at  the  time  of  their  greatest  originality  would  show 
young  men,  men  old  enough  to  have  assimilated  the 
work  of  their  predecessors,  but  not  so  old  as  to  have  lost 
the  ardor  and  flexibility  of  youth. 

If  there  is  any  other  fact  to  be  observed  in  a  distant 
view  of  genius,  it  is  perhaps  a  remarkable  keenness  of 
perception  in  the  field  peculiar  to  any  individual  genius. 
Newton's  discovery  of  gravitation — ^whether  or  not  the 
incident  of  the  falling  apple  ever  occurred — amounted 
to  the  perception  of  an  element  of  falling  in  the  motion 
of  the  moon  around  the  earth.  The  moon  does  not  seem 
to  fall  towards  the  earth,  for  it  always  remains  the  same 
distance  away.  On  the  other  hand,  its  inertia  should 
carry  it  forward  in  a  straight  line,  and  its  deviation  from 
that  line  towards  the  earth  is  a  sort  of  falling,  and  was 
recognized  by  Newton  to  be  a  special  case  of  falling. 
Probably  all  original  discoveries  can  be  similarly  stated 
as  acts  of  keen  perception.  If  you  will  re-read  Caesar's 
Commentaries  with  the  object  of  getting  some  insight 
into  his  genius,  you  will  be  struck  by  the  frequency  with 
which  the  statement  is  made  that  'Csesar  observed'  this 
or  that — what  he  observed  being,  indeed,  the  key  to 


132  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

the  situation,  and  enabling  him  to  master  it.  Napoleon, 
according  to  his  own  testimony,  habitually  went  into 
battle  without  a  fixed  plan,  trusting  to  the  course  of 
events  to  bring  about  a  situation  which,  instantly  per- 
ceived and  utilized  by  him,  would  bring  victory.  The 
merit  of  a  painter  or  of  a  poet  is,  often  at  least,  his  keen 
eye  for  form  or  color,  or  for  the  pathos  or  dramatic 
quality  of  a  situation. 

Attempts  to  find  the  essential  mark  of  genius  in  *an 
infinite  capacity  for  taking  pains',  in  'complete  objectiv- 
ity' as  opposed  to  self-seeking  (Schopenhauer),  in  'love 
of  truth'  (Goethe),  in  the  'faculty  of  perceiving  in  an 
unhabitual  way'  (William  James),  err  in  the  universality 
of  the  genius  which  they  thus  seem  to  presuppose. 
Genius  is  this — at  least  this :  native  capacity  of  a  very 
high  order  for  perceiving  and  handling  a  certain  class  of 
objects,  the  class  differing  with  the  particular  bent  of 
the  individual's  genius.  The  genius's  spontaneous  in- 
terest in  this  class  of  objects,  his  quick  and  penetrating 
apprehension  of  them,  his  masterful  handling  of  them, 
his  absorption  in  them  to  the  neglect  often  of  the  com- 
moner interests  of  life,  his  remarkable  persistence  and 
industry  in  dealing  with  them,  and  his  consequent  pro- 
ductivity, are  all  the  same  trait  under  different  names. 
Continued  attention  to  a  thing  means  that  something 
is  found  in  it,  interest  in  a  thing  means  ability  to  appre- 
hend it,  mastery  of  a  thing  means  understanding  of  it, 
absorption  means  interest  and  means  that  headway  is 
being  made,  industry,  of  the  type  seen  in  the  genius, 
means  an  interest  in  the  thing  for  its  own  sake,  means 
apprehension  and  mastery  of  the  thing.  The  drive 
behind  the  industry  of  the  genius  is  not  the  drive  of 


FACTOR  OF  ORIGINALITY  133 

hunger,  or  sex,  or  rivalry — though  any  of  these  may 
contribute  incentive — but  is  to  be  sought  within  the 
activity  itself.  The  genius,  in  short,  is  an  individual 
peculiarly  adapted  and  responsive  to  certain  aspects  of 
reality.  Contact  with  them  arouses  his  responsive 
activity;  he  responds  to  them  as  naturally  as  the  lion 
responds  to  the  presence  of  prey.  We  have  here,  in 
other  words,  simply  a  clear  case  of  the  principle  insisted 
upon  in  an  earlier  discussion  of  native  capacities :  that, 
namely,  perceptual  tendencies  do  not  require  a  drive 
outside  themselves,  each  being  capable  of  furnishing 
drive  for  itself,  even  as  instinctive  hunting  furnishes  its 
own  drive.  The  child  is  primarily  inteiested  in  things, 
not  for  their  practical  value,  i.  e.,  as  means  to  ulterior 
ends,  but  in  each  thing  for  itself.  The  child  is  curious 
and  playful.  He  is  interested  in  a  thing  because  he  has 
a  response  for  it.  The  genius,  having  this  capacity  for 
dealing  with  some  class  of  objects  present  in  him  to  an 
unusual  degree,  is  able  to  remain  for  an  exceptionally 
long  time  curious  about  this  class  of  objects  and  playful 
with  them.  The  genius's  activity,  as  has  often  been 
observed,  though  strenuous  and  painstaking,  is  rather 
play  than  work — which  means  that  it  is  carried  forward 
by  its  own  inherent  interest  rather  than  by  a  drive  from 
beyond  itself. 

Leaving  now  the  genius  with  his  great  originality,  let 
us  turn  to  the  ordinary  man,  and  even  to  the  animal, 
and  ask  whether  the  factor  of  originality  is  at  all  opera- 
tive in  his  behavior.  Recalling  our  earlier  consideration 
of  the  process  of  learning,  we  see  that  originality  is  not 
absent  from  any  animal  that  learns,  since  learning  pro- 
duces new  mechanisms,  not  provided  by  nature  or  pre- 


134  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

vious  learning.  At  the  moment  of  learning  a  new  reac- 
tion, therefore,  there  is  present  a  factor  of  originality. 
Something  new  is  achieved.  The  newness  of  the  learned 
reaction  may  consist  simply  in  the  attachment  of  an 
old  act  to  a  new  stimulus,  i.  e.,  to  a  stimulus  that  has 
not  previously  had  the  power  of  arousing  this  act.  Even 
the  conditioned  reflex,  and  negative  adaptation,  accord- 
ingly, have  an  element  of  originality  in  them.  The  new- 
ness may  also  consist  in  the  combination  of  acts  into  a 
new  compound  act,  as  seen  especially  in  the  acquisition 
of  motor  skill  in  typewriting  and  telegraphy.  Again, 
the  newness  may  consist  in  a  specific  responsiveness  to 
some  feature  of  a  situation  which  previously  did  not  act 
in  isolation  to  arouse  response,  but  only  in  combination. 
Here  originality  takes  the  form  of  analysis,  as  in  the 
preceding  case  it  took  the  form  of  synthesis. 

The  originality  here  revealed  is  subject  to  certain 
limitations.  Though  it  adds  to  native  equipment,  it 
does  not  absolutely  go  beyond  nature,  for  evidently 
nature  provided  the  possibility  of  the  new  reaction. 
Native  equipment  is  provided  by  nature  ready  made; 
but  acquired  equipment  is  provided  in  the  form  of  a 
capacity  for  learning.  Again,  originality  does  not  take 
us  absolutely  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  world  as  it  is 
presented  to  us.  We  learn  new  adjustments  to  the 
world,  we  learn  to  perceive  reality  in  certain  particulars, 
and  to  manipulate  it  in  certain  ways.  Just  as  even  the 
dynamo  and  the  telephone  use  the  materials  and  forces 
of  nature  and  are,  in  spite  of  their  artificiality,  after  all 
natural  objects  and  their  actions  natural  processes,  so 
the  inventive  act  that  originated  them  was  a  natural 
process  and  an  adjustment  to  the  natural  world.   You 


FACTOR  OF  ORIGINALITY  135 

can  trace  your  ability  to  perform  a  certain  skilled  act 
back  to  the  time  when  you  learned  it,  and  your  learning 
of  the  act  may  properly  be  called  the  origin  of  that 
ability  in  you;  but  it  is  not  an  absolute  origin,  since  it 
was,  on  the  one  side,  an  unfolding  of  your  native  ten- 
dencies and  capacities,  and  on  the  other,  a  response  to 
environmental  conditions.  It  was,  in  short,  an  inter- 
action between  you  and  the  environment,  and  gave  a 
new  adjustment  of  your  nature  to  nature  outside.  Even 
the  originality  of  the  genius  is  not  absolute. 

If  learning  were  purely  passive  or  receptive,  as  it  has 
often  been  conceived,  novelties  would  still  arise  in  the 
experience  of  the  individual,  but  he  would  be  so  little 
concerned  in  originating  them  that  we  could  scarcely 
speak  of  a  factor  of  originality  as  operative  in  him.  The 
fact  is,  however,  that  learning  is  a  reactive  process,  and 
that  what  is  learned  is  the  reaction  that  one  has  given 
birth  to.  This  is  obviously  so  in  learning  a  motor  act, 
for  we  do  not  receive  the  act,  do  not  have  it  impressed 
upon  us,  but  make  it  in  response  to  the  stimulus  acting 
on  us,  and  by  making  it  learn  it.  In  perception  and  the 
learning  of  facts,  the  active  role  of  the  learner  is  less 
obvious;  and,  in  fact,  it  was  from  considering  this  case 
to  the  exclusion  of  motor  learning  that  philosophers 
were  led  to  conceive  of  learning  as  a  purely  receptive 
process.  But,  in  truth,  perception  is  as  much  a  reaction 
as  is  motor  response.  This  is  well  seen  in  the  cases, 
mentioned  in  a  previous  connection,  of  alternative  per- 
cepts aroused  by  the  same  stimulus.  Ambiguous  figures 
give  this  varied  perceptual  reaction  in  an  especially 
striking  form,  but  any  perception  of  an  object  that  is 
not  perfectly  familiar  or  clear  gives  the  same  phenom- 


136  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

enon  of  varied  reaction,  and  the  shifting  of  attention 
from  one  to  another  feature  of  a  complex  presented  situ- 
ation is  varied  reaction  again.  Thus,  perception  is  en- 
titled to  be  called  reaction,  and  originality  enters  when- 
ever a  new  perception  is  achieved,  and  a  new  idea 
gained,  as  truly  as  when  a  new  motor  act  is  added  to 
our  equipment.  Ideas  are  not  delivered  to  us  ready- 
made  by  our  teachers,  but  are  modes  of  response  which 
we  have  to  develop  for  ourselves.  Newton,  the  original 
genius,  comes  unaided  to  see  the  revolution  of  the  moon 
as  a  falling  toward  the  earth;  he  then  points  out  to  his 
contemporaries  the  elements  in  the  situation  that  have 
led  him  to  this  way  of  perceiving;  and  his  contem- 
poraries, thus  guided,  begin  to  perceive  the  matter  in 
the  same  way.  It  is  as  when  on  shipboard  one  person 
spies  a  distant  sail  and  points  it  out  to  his  fellow  pas- 
sengers, who,  thus  assisted,  are  able  to  see  it  for  them- 
selves. The  factor  of  originality  enters  more  largely 
into  the  performance  of  the  discoverer,  but  is  present 
to  some  degree  in  every  one  who  is  able,  even  with 
assistance,  to  break  away  from  established  modes  of 
response  and  adopt  new  ones. 

The  ordinary  man,  followed  through  his  day's  routine, 
reveals  little  originality.  Surrounded  for  the  most  part 
by  familiar  objects,  he  perceives  them  in  the  old  ways  or 
neglects  them  as  he  is  wont.  He  meets  the  regular  de- 
mands made  on  him  by  the  regular  acts  that  he  has 
learned  to  make.  Even  if  the  objects  that  confront 
him  are  somewhat  novel,  he  assimilates  them  to  familiar 
types  of  object,  and  makes  little  response  to  their 
novelty ;  and  even  if  the  conditions  he  has  to  meet  are 
somewhat  new,  he  comes  through,  as  best  he  may,  with 


FACTOR  OF  ORIGINALITY  137 

his  old  stock  of  reactions.  The  inertia  of  habit  carries 
him  along;  and  as  he  has  become  pretty  well  adapted  to 
his  circumstances,  habit  carries  him  along  pretty 
smoothly.  Yet  some  embers  of  originality  are  still 
smouldering  within  him  and  can  be  fanned  into  life 
when  conditions  are  right.  If  we  ask  what  are  the  con- 
ditions favorable  to  arousing  the  factor  of  originality, 
we  find  a  long-accepted  answer  in  the  maxim,  'Necessity 
is  the  mother  of  invention'.  'Invention',  broadly  inter- 
preted, covers  all  forms  of  original  behavior.  The  idea 
is  that  routine  is  the  line  of  least  resistance,  departed 
from  only  under  the  spur  of  necessity.  Necessity,  to 
revert  to  our  favorite  mode  of  expression,  furnishes  the 
drive  for  original  activity.  Let  us  examine  this  maxim 
regarded  as  a  law  of  dynamic  psychology. 

We  should  not  expect  to  find  more  than  a  half  truth 
in  a  proverb;  and  so  it  is  in  this  case.  The  necessity 
must  not  be  too  extreme,  too  dire,  for,  if  it  is,  no  free 
play  is  allowed,  and  the  old  reactions  simply  have  to  be 
employed.  Under  dire  necessity,  one  rather  reverts  to 
instinct  than  progresses  to  invention.  Invention  usually 
requires  a  degree  of  leisure  and  freedom  from  immediate 
danger  or  want. 

Again,  the  necessity  that  gives  birth  to  invention  is 
not  ordinarily  a  purely  external  necessity.  Perhaps 
there  is  no  purely  external  necessity  in  any  case,  for 
unless  a  man  had  the  will  to  live,  unless  he  had  needs 
and  tendencies  within  himself,  external  compulsion  or 
deprivation  would  be  indifferent  to  him.  The  necessity 
which  drives  a  man  is  primarily  his  own  need  or  ten- 
dency; and  the  external  element  in  necessity  consists  in 
an  obstruction  to  this  inner  tendency.    It  is  when  the 


138  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

drive  toward  some  consummatory  reaction  has  been 
awakened  in  a  man  or  animal,  but  progress  toward  the 
consummation  is  obstructed — ^while,  nevertheless,  a  cer- 
tain leeway  is  afforded  for  exploration  and  trial  and 
error — that  the  conditions  for  originative  behavior  are 
realized. 

The  tendency  that  furnishes  the  drive  for  originative 
behavior — ^which,  as  already  suggested,  emphatically 
needs  a  drive,  since  it  runs  counter  to  the  ease  of  rou- 
tine— must,  according  to  some  authors,  be  furnished  by 
some  one  of  the  great  primal  instincts  common  to  man 
and  animals.  Danger,  hunger  as  the  type  of  economic 
need,  rivalry,  and  the  sex  impulse,  have  most  often  been 
assigned  as  the  motive  force,  and  any  of  them  may  cer- 
tainly furnish  the  drive.  But  there  is  no  reason  for  thus 
limiting  the  possibilities.  The  motive  force  may  be 
one  of  those  added  to  the  native  stock  in  the  experience 
of  the  individual;  and,  as  the  genius  has  shown  us,  it 
may  be  an  objective  interest.  It  is  impossible  to  believe 
that  Gauss,  so  absorbed  in  his  mathematical  discoveries 
as  to  be  oblivious  to  hunger  and  the  appeals  of  his 
friends,  is  driven  by  hunger,  rivalry,  or  the  sex  impulse, 
or,  in  fact,  by  anything  but  his  interest  in  what  he  is 
doing ;  and  the  same  is  true  in  an  humbler  way  of  the 
devoted  labors  of  lesser  men.  This  point  has  already 
been  sufficiently  insisted  upon.  The  drive  may  be  any 
tendency  to  action  which,  once  aroused  and  not  im- 
mediately satisfied,  continues  awake  and  so  in  a  position 
to  supply  impetus  to  other  mechanisms.  Any  drive, 
obstructed,  may  give  rise  to  originative  activity. 

The  conditions  that  excite  original  activity  are,  then, 
an  awakened  tendency  toward  some  result  and  an  ob- 


FACTOR  OF  ORIGINALITY  139 

struction  encountered.  If  we  would  know  the  form  of 
activity  by  which  the  obstruction  is  overcome,  and  the 
factor  of  originality  revealed  in  action,  we  shall  have  to 
examine  such  comparatively  humble  instances  as  can 
be  brought  under  experimental  control,  hoping  that  our 
results  here  will  be  applicable  also  to  the  higher  mani- 
festations of  originality ;  for  it  is  quite  possible  that  the 
form  of  the  process  is  the  same  in  humble  and  noble 
instances,  the  difference  lying  in  the  field  of  exercise 
rather  than  in  the  form  of  the  activity. 

Experiments  have  been  conducted  in  solving  prob- 
lems that  were  difficult  enough  to  be  genuine  problems, 
without  being  so  profound  as  to  require  a  long  time  for 
their  solution.  The  choice  of  problems  has  been  dic- 
tated by  the  desire  to  get  objective  measures  of  success 
in  solving  the  problem  and  at  the  same  time  reliable 
introspections  regarding  the  mental  process  that  led  to 
the  solution.  Problems  requiring  some  direct  motor 
action  are  indicated,  since  both  introspection  and  ob- 
jective measurement  are  easier  here  than  when  the 
action  required  is  purely  ideational;  but  studies  made 
with  the  latter  sort  of  problem  have  led  to  the  same  sort 
of  conclusions. 

Ruger^  chose  mechanical  puzzles  as  problems  to  be 
solved.  The  puzzle,  unfamiliar  to  the  subject,  was 
placed  in  his  hands  with  instructions  to  solve  it,  no 
other  assistance  being  given,  unless  perhaps  the  assur- 
ance that  the  puzzle  could  be  solved.  The  situation 
confronting  the  human  subject  in  this  experiment  was 
quite  analogous  to  that  confronting  the  animal  in  a 
puzzle  box.    The  puzzle  set  the  human  subject  is  simply 

1  The  Psychology  oj  Efficiency,  19 10. 


140  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

more  difficult,  to  correspond  with  his  greater  ability. 
The  reaction  of  the  human  subject  was,  in  many  in- 
stances, surprisingly  like  that  of  the  animal.  He  re- 
sorted at  once  to  manipulation,  twisting  the  puzzle  this 
way  and  that,  examining  this  or  that  part  of  it,  and  fol- 
lowing the  suggestions  offered  by  the  part  examined. 
When  the  first  reaction  resulted  in  a  check,  some  other 
line  of  attack  was  substituted ;  and  thus  the  subject  went 
from  one  attempt  to  another,  exemplifying  as  well  as  an 
animal  could  the  principles  of  varied  reaction  and  of 
trial  and  error.  In  the  course  of  these  varied  attempts, 
the  solution  would  be  reached,  often  so  unexpectedly  as 
to  surprise  the  performer,  who  perhaps  did  not  see  at 
all  how  he  had  escaped  from  the  difficulty;  and  on  a 
second  trial  his  behavior  might  be  much  the  same  as  at 
first;  but,  as  in  the  case  of  the  animal,  the  useless  reac- 
tions tended  to  be  eliminated  gradually  in  a  series  of 
trials,  and  the  movements  that  gave  success  retained, 
so  that  the  correct  reaction  was  more  and  more  quickly 
performed. 

Usually  there  was  more  of  an  intelligent  process  than 
this.  The  subject,  on  his  first  accidental  solution,  might 
at  least  observe  where  he  was  when  success  was  reached, 
and  confine  his  future  efforts  to  this  place,  thus  materi- 
ally shortening  the  time  of  subsequent  trials.  He  might 
also  satisfy  himself  that  such  and  such  promising  leads 
led  nowhere,  and  consciously  eliminate  them.  He 
might  see  into  the  mechanism  to  a  greater  or  less  degree. 
In  some  cases,  indeed,  he  might  gain  a  fairly  complete 
insight  into  its  working,  and  so  reach  an  intelligent 
conception  of  the  problem  and  of  the  method  of  solution. 
The  more  he  'saw  into'  the  thing,  the  more  he  was  able 


FACTOR  OF  ORIGINALITY  141 

to  utilize  his  experience  in  subsequently  dealing  with 
another  puzzle  having  in  part  the  same  principle.  The 
more  blind  and  empirical  his  procedure,  the  more  likely 
he  was  to  meet  later  with  unexpected  difficulties,  and 
to  have  to  begin  over  again  after  mastery  had  ap- 
parently been  gained. 

Occasionally  a  subject  showed  less  tendency  to  motor 
activity,  and  was  inclined  to  study  the  puzzle  out  by 
examining  it,  and  to  apply  known  principles  derived 
from  past  experience.  Though  this  mode  of  attack 
possessed  advantages,  it  was  usually  not  so  well  adap- 
ted to  rapid  progress  as  a  procedure  in  which  some  ma- 
nipulation was  present.  The  procedure  most  to  be 
recommended  in  the  interests  of  prompt  solution  of  a 
puzzle  of  this  sort  is  to  manipulate  while  keeping  the 
eyes  open  for  clews  and  principles.  In  the  great  ma- 
jority of  cases,  definite  advances  in  mastery,  as  shown 
objectively  by  sudden  increase  of  speed  in  solution, 
were  introspectively  accompanied  by  fresh  insight  into 
the  principle  or  workings  of  the  puzzle. 

Almost  always,  in  such  situations,  the  subject 
promptly  reached  some  tentative  conception  of  the 
nature  of  the  problem — some  assumption  regarding  it, 
and  based  his  manipulations  on  this  assumption.  He 
assumed,  for  example,  on  the  strength  of  the  way  the 
puzzle  first  looked  to  him,  that  it  was  to  be  solved  in 
about  such  and  such  a  way,  and  confined  his  efforts 
within  the  limits  so  drawn,  being  blind,  often,  to  other 
possibilities  which  lay  outside  the  scope  of  his  first 
assumption.  Amusing  instances  occurred  in  which,  the 
assumption  being  a  mistaken  one,  very  obvious  ways 
out  of  the  difficulty  were  overlooked,  as  if  the  subject 


142  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

were  entirely  blind  to  them.  Under  these  circum- 
stances, a  suggestion  by  the  experimenter  that  the 
subject  formulate  his  underlying  assumptions  and  then 
ask  himself  what  other  assumptions  might  possibly  be 
made,  sometimes  led  to  the  disappearance  of  this  blind- 
ness, and  so  to  a  speedy  solution  after  long  and  fruitless 
efforts.  In  some  cases,  however,  the  subject  was  un- 
accountably stubborn  In  his  assumptions,  and  prac- 
tically refused  to  alter  them  even  though  they  had  led 
to  nothing  but  failure.  This  stubbornness  and  lack  of 
flexibility  is  evidently  the  opposite  of  originality.  It 
amounted  to  a  sticking  in  the  ruts,  a  following  of  the 
habit  first  established,  a  shutting  up  of  the  mind  against 
any  further  Insight.  Though  such  stubbornness  seems 
at  first  unaccountable,  it  noticeably  gave  the  subject 
some  comfort  in  spite  of  the  resulting  failure.  This  was 
undoubtedly  the  comfort  of  the  familiar,  the  ease  and 
smoothness  of  habit.  Just  as  old  people  often  dislike 
new  ways,  even  when  they  recognize  their  superiority 
to  the  old  ways,  because  the  old  ways  are  easy  and  com- 
fortable, and  any  adventure  outside  of  them  brings  an 
uncomfortable  sense  of  insecurity,  so  it  was  here,  and 
to  some  degree  with  all  persons,  though  much  more  with 
some  than  with  others.  As  Indicated  by  these  experi- 
ments, then,  one  condition  of  original  behavior  lies  in  a 
readiness  to  give  up  existing  conceptions  and  venture 
out  Into  the  untried  sea  of  further  possibilities. 

Though  it  certainly  is  not  possible  to  give  rules  that 
shall  make  one  who  follows  them  original,  yet  these 
experiments  suggested  certain  guiding  principles  that 
would  probably  Increase  the  effectiveness  of  the  factor 
of  originality.    One  of  these  is  that  just  indicated — to 


FACTOR  OF  ORIGINALITY  143 

endeavor  to  keep  an  open  mind  to  possibilities  that  have 
not  yet  suggested  themselves.  This  can  sometimes  be 
accomplished  by  first  noting  precisely  what  the  assump- 
tions are  on  which  one  is  proceeding,  and  then  asking 
whether  other  possibilities  do  not  exist.  Originality  re- 
quires that  the  reaction  to  a  problem  should  not  be 
allowed  to  harden  prematurely  into  habit. 

Another  teaching,  a  counterfoil  to  the  preceding,  is 
to  test  your  assumptions  one  by  one,  and  endeavor  to 
exclude  some  of  them  definitely  before  passing  on,  and 
thus  limit  the  field  of  operations.  If  some  individuals 
fail  for  lack  of  flexibility,  others  are  too  flexible,  are  very 
open  to  clews  and  suggestions,  but  make  little  progress 
because  none  of  the  clews  is  persistently  followed  up. 
In  other  words,  persistence  may  be  in  excess  and  amount 
to  stubbornness,  or  in  deficiency  and  amount  to  lack  of 
control. 

The  value  of  generalization  and  precise  formulation 
of  what  has  been  discovered  also  came  out  in  these 
experiments,  especially  when  transition  was  made  from 
one  puzzle  to  another.  A  generalized  and  formulated 
observation  was  applicable  beyond  the  field  where  it 
w^as  originally  made,  while  others  were  likely  to  be  lim- 
ited to  that  field. 

In  general,  then,  the  process  gone  through  in  original 
activity  has  the  form  of  varied  reaction  and  trial  and 
error,  with  some  degree  of  control  and  generalization. 
The  process  may  be  restated  thus :  the  individual  is  con- 
fronted by  a  situation  to  which  he  attempts  to  react  but 
meets  with  obstruction.  This  stimulates  him  to  explo- 
ration and  varied  attempts  at  escape.  The  situation, 
being  complex,  offers  many  points  of  attack,  many  fea- 


144  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

tures  which,  being  observed,  suggest  or  evoke  reactions 
in  accordance  with  past  experience.  The  difficulty  is,  to 
find  the  right  feature  to  react  to,  or,  in  other  words,  so 
to  perceive  the  situation  as  to  be  able  to  bring  our  exist- 
ing equipment  into  successful  use.  The  individual 
whose  past  experience  has  best  equipped  him  for  reac- 
tion to  this  type  of  situation,  who  has  most  flexibility 
combined  with  due  persistence  and  control,  and  who  is 
natively  most  responsive  to  this  type  of  situation,  dis- 
plays the  most  originality  in  dealing  with  it. 

Another  experiment,  of  a  somewhat  different  sort, 
may  also  be  reviewed  for  evidence  on  the  matter  of 
originality.  In  learning  to  typewrite,  Book  found,  as 
has  already  been  said  in  speaking  of  the  process  of  learn- 
ing, that  after  the  learner  had  mastered  the  reactions  to 
the  separate  letters,  there  came  a  time  when  he  began  to 
make  synthetic  reactions  to  often-recurring  words  or 
groups  of  letters.  He  hit  upon  this  new  and  more  effi- 
cient mode  of  reaction  not  deliberately,  but  without 
forethought,  and,  as  it  were,  accidentally,  when  he  was 
feeling  fresh  and  in  good  physical  condition,  and  was 
hopefully  doing  his  utmost  to  improve  his  speed.  He 
then  found  himself  writing  a  word  as  a  unit,  by  a  con- 
catenated series  of  movements  called  out  as  a  whole, 
instead  of  by  his  previous  method  of  spelling  the  word 
out  letter  by  letter.  The  essential  act  seems  here  to  be  a 
widening  of  the  mental  grasp  to  take  in  several  letters 
at  a  time,  with  their  sequence  and  the  relations  of  one 
to  the  other.  For  example,  the  first  letter  is  written 
with  the  left  hand,  the  second  with  the  right,  and  the 
third  with  the  left  again.  In  the  letter-reaction  stage, 
the  subject  has  taken  no  note  of  this  alternation  of  the 


FACTOR  OF  ORIGINALITY  145' 

two  hands,  but  now,  widening  his  span  of  apprehension, 
he  takes  in  the  three  letters  at  once,  with  the  alternation 
of  the  two  hands  as  an  integral  part  of  the  coordinated 
act.  Very  often,  indeed,  originality  consists  in  perceiv- 
ing or  responding  to  the  relations  of  things  previously 
perceived  without  regard  to  their  relations. 

When  we  turn  from  these  motor  performances  to 
ideational  thinking  and  reasoning,  we  should  perhaps 
expect  to  find  the  form  of  action  entirely  different. 
Trial  and  error,  especially,  is  usually  conceived  as  a 
low  grade  of  reaction,  appropriate  to  animals,  but  con- 
trasted with  the  rational  thought  of  man.  Reasoning, 
as  pictured  in  the  syllogism,  with  its  major  and  minor 
premises  and  resulting  conclusion,  appears  truly  as  a 
straight  ahead  movement,  very  different  from  the  tenta- 
tive exploration  of  trial  and  error.  But  it  is  now  recog- 
nized that  the  formal  syllogism  is  by  no  means  a  psy- 
chological picture.  It  is  a  check  which  can  be  applied 
to  a  completed  act  of  reasoning,  to  detect  possible  errors. 
If  the  reasoning  is  coherent,  it  should  be  expressible  in 
syllogistic  form,  or  some  other  definite  form.  But  the 
process  of  reasoning,  as  it  actually  goes  on,  does  not 
have  the  well-ordered  form  of  the  syllogism.  It  does  not 
start  with  the  major  premise,  but  with  a  problem.  The 
premises  are  not  given,  but  must  be  found;  and  the 
finding  of  them  is  a  tentative,  trial  and  error  process, 
though  carried  on,  it  may  be,  in  the  ideational  rather 
than  in  the  motor  sphere. 

This  can  easily  be  demonstrated  by  the  solution  of 
what  are  called  'originals*  in  the  teaching  of  geometry. 
It  is  true  that  the  regular  propositions  in  the  geometry 
books  are  set  down  in  syllogistic  form,  with  an  orderly 


146  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

procedure  from  the  known  to  the  unknown.  But  it  is 
safe  to  say  that  these  same  propositions  did  not  origi- 
nate in  this  well-ordered  form ;  and  this  can  be  demon- 
strated, or  at  least  made  highly  probable,  by  obser\^ing 
how  an  'original'  is  solved.  One  cannot  go  straight  for- 
ward in  an  orderly  manner — if  one  could,  not  originality 
but  habit  would  be  in  play.  One  starts  with  the  prob- 
lem, and  explores  about,  like  a  rat  in  a  maze  or  a  cat  in 
a  cage,  trying  this  and  that  as  one  notices  one  after 
another  feature  of  the  problem,  till  finally  a  good  clew 
is  got,  the  essential  elements  of  the  problem  are  dis- 
covered and  the  appropriate  premises  recalled — after 
which  trial  and  error  process,  indeed,  one  can  remodel 
the  reasoning  into  the  syllogistic  form  and  thus  check 
up  its  correctness.  Reason  thus  proceeds  from  the 
unknown  to  the  known.  It  would  be  easy,  no  doubt,  to 
start  with  the  known,  but  the  question  would  then  be, 
whither  to  proceed.  We  need  a  goal.  The  goal  is  the 
unknown,  which  comes  first  in  reasoning,  as  a  goal,  to 
be  sure.  Reasoning  is  first  of  all  a  tendency  towards  the 
unknown,  and  next  a  finding  of  something  known  from 
which  to  proceed.  The  unknown,  strange,  baffling  situa- 
tion must  somehow  be  made  to  yield  something  that  is 
known,  by  means  of  which  the  unknown  can  be  mastered. 
The  qualifications  for  a  good  thinker  are,  first,  that 
he  should  be  equipped  by  past  experience  for  dealing 
with  the  kind  of  material  now  presented ;  that  he  should, 
in  other  words,  be  in  possession  of  knowledge  applicable 
to  the  problem  in  hand.  Second,  that  he  should  have 
a  keenness  in  observing  the  features  of  the  situation  or 
problem  presented  to  him,  and  a  degree  of  'sagacity'^ 

^  See  the  Chapter  on  'Reasoning'  in  James's  Principles  of  Psychology. 


FACTOR  OF  ORIGINALITY  147 

in  selecting  or  hitting  upon  features  that  are  of  signifi- 
cance; this  quality  distinguishes  the  effective  thinker 
from  one  who,  perhaps  with  great  learning,  labors  long 
and  ineffectively  over  inessentials.  Third,  he  should 
have  a  quality  of  mind  which  we  may  call  flexibility,  an 
ability  to  get  out  of  the  rut  and  see  what  did  not  at  first 
impress  him.  Fourth,  he  needs  the  power  of  control,  so 
that  his  thinking,  instead  of  wandering  hither  and  yon 
as  interesting  suggestions  strike  him,  shall  remain  fixed 
on  the  problem  in  hand  in  spite  of  the  flexibility  of  his 
attention.  Of  these  qualifications,  that  which  is  most 
amenable  to  improvement  through  effort  and  training 
is  evidently  the  first,  while  that  which  is  most  ex- 
clusively a  matter  of  native  gifts  is  probably  the  factor 
of  sagacity.  To  find  a  clue  is  some  merit ;  to  be  able  to 
drop  one  clue  and  find  others  is  still  better;  but  to  have 
the  'detective  instinct'  that  fixes  on  the  right  clue  is  the 
mark,  in  any  given  field,  of  the  man  who  has  a  real  gift 
for  original  thinking  in  that  field. 

The  conditions  under  which  reasoning  arises — ob- 
struction to  a  tendency  which  has  been  aroused  to  activ- 
ity— give  rise  also  to  another  important  phenomenon. 
The  obstruction  arouses  an  access  of  energy  in  the  ten- 
dency obstructed.  Access  of  energy  on  obstruction 
seems  a  fundamental  characteristic  of  instinctive,  as 
indeed,  of  any  action.  Restraint  of  an  animal  that  is 
starting  to  move  makes  him  strain  against  the  restraint. 
Holding  your  hand  over  a  child's  mouth  when  he  is 
crying  makes  him  bawl  the  louder.  The  horse  responds 
to  the  rise  in  the  road,  or  to  the  increase  in  his  load  by 
pulling  the  harder — up  to  a  certain  limit,  of  course. 


148  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

This  tendency  can  be  experimentally  demonstrated  in 
adults.  The  muscular  force  of  a  movement  is  roughly 
proportioned  to  the  resistance  encountered,  and  if  the 
resistance  is  suddenly  increased,  there  is  a  reflex  increase 
of  muscular  energy  to  overcome  the  resistance.  And  the 
same  thing  can  be  observed  in  acts  that  are  not  dis- 
tinctly muscular.  1  The  subject  rouses  himself  to  over- 
come a  distraction  or  a  difficulty  in  the  task  before  him, 
and  often  does  better  work  under  difficulties  than  when 
everything  is  'plain  sailing'.  Even  where  the  resistance 
encountered  is  not  of  a  directly  physical  nature,  and 
where  muscular  force  has  nothing  to  do  with  overcom- 
ing it,  an  almost  universal  result  of  encountering  resis- 
tance is  an  increase  in  motor  tension  and  action.  Dis- 
traction while  one  is  typewriting  causes  one  to  pound 
the  keys  harder  and  speak  the  words  aloud;  and  the 
same  is  true  when  the  beginner  is  encountering  the 
difficulties  incident  to  his  unfamiliarity  with  the  work. 
This  overflow  of  energy  into  motor  channels  reveals  the 
access  of  energy  that  has  occurred  in  the  brain  as  the 
result  of  the  difficulties  encountered. 

There  may  also  appear  signs  of  displeasure  and  espe- 
cially of  anger.  The  subject's  face  becomes  flushed,  his 
voice  takes  on  a  harsh  quality ;  he  may  give  vent  to  in- 
terjections expressive  of  vexation.  If  his  introspections 
are  taken,  he  testifies  to  the  presence  of  displeasure  and 
vexation,  and  of  determination  to  overcome  the  obstacle 
and  reach  the  desired  end.  He  is  likely  to  express  him- 
self by  saying,  ''In  spite  of  the  difficulties,  I  can  and  will 
do  this  thing.  "2    The  state  of  mind  is  one  of  zeal  and 

^Morgan,  The  Overcoming  of  Distraction  and  Other  Resistances,  191 6. 
2 See  Ach,  IJher  das  Willensakt  und  das  Temperament,  1910. 


FACTOR  OF  ORIGINALITY  149 

even  of  fierceness;  and  it  is  not  at  all  improbable  that 
the  internal  bodily  condition  is  similar  to  that  which 
Cannon  has  shown  to  exist  in  rage.^  Anger,  zeal,  deter- 
mination, willing  are  closely  allied  and  probably  iden- 
tical in  part.  Certainly  they  are  aroused  by  the  same 
stimulus,  namely,  by  obstruction  encountered  in  the 
pursuit  of  some  end. 

It  is  interesting  that  reasoning,  willing,  and  anger  are 
all  aroused  by  the  same  sort  of  conditions.  Willing  and 
anger  are,  indeed,  somewhat  similar  states,  though  will 
may  certainly  be  strong  and  at  the  same  time  com- 
paratively calm.  Anger  and  reasoning  are  not  likely 
to  be  aroused  together,  but  some  degree  of  voluntary 
effort  is  aroused  along  with  reasoning.  The  tendency  of 
anger,  or  of  will  for  that  matter,  is  to  overcome  the 
obstacle  by  a  frontal  attack,  whereas  the  tendency  of 
reason  is  to  explore  about  for  some  other  way  to  the 
desired  goal.  The  strong  will,  that  bends  not  to  any 
opposition,  appears  the  nobler  trait,  and  Achilles  a 
greater  hero  than  the  wily  Ulysses ;  though  it  is  perhaps 
Ulysses  that  more  often  takes  the  city.  No  complete 
antagonism,  however,  exists  between  the  two;  for  a 
certain  amount  of  voluntary  energy  is  needed  to  carry 
the  reasoning  process  forward. 

Reasoning  is  the  development  of  a  new  mechanism; 
willing  the  development  of  fresh  motive  power.  The 
most  important  question  regarding  willing  is :  Whence 
comes  this  fresh  motive  power?  How  can  obstruction 
to  a  tendency  increase  its  drive?  Apparently  there 
are  several  ways  in  which  the  extra  drive  can  origi- 
nate.     In   the   simplest   cases,   no   new   tendency  is 

1  cf.  pp.  52-55  above. 


150  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

aroused,  but  the  tendency  that  is  already  somewhat 
active  is  more  completely  aroused  by  the  obstruction. 
The  avoiding  or  self-protective  instinct,  for  example,  is 
aroused  by  the  presence  of  danger,  but  it  may  be  only 
moderately  aroused  if  escape  is  unimpeded ;  but  let  an 
obstacle  obtrude  itself,  and  the  fear  impulse  is  more 
thoroughly  awakened  and  gives  greater  energy  to  the 
escape  movements. 

Slightly  more  complex  is  the  case  where  the  primary 
tendency,  after  starting  a  series  of  acts  in  motion,  has 
itself  gone  partially  to  sleep,  because  the  interest  of 
these  acts — preparatory  reactions — is  sufficient  to  carry 
them  forward  once  they  are  started.  They  supply  their 
own  drive.  But  now  let  an  obstruction  occur,  and  the 
primary  tendency  is  again  awakened  and  supplements 
the  drive  inherent  in  the  act  that  is  momentarily  being 
executed.  I  start  for  the  train,  it  may  be,  in  plenty  of 
time;  and,  while  this  primary  motive  of  catching  the 
train  is  sufficiently  awake  to  keep  me  to  my  course,  I  am 
carried  forward  from  moment  to  moment  by  habit  or 
by  the  interest  of  my  walk  and  of  the  things  I  see.  But 
an  obstruction  appears,  and  the  primary  tendency 
awakes  to  full  activity  as  I  remember  that  I  must  catch 
that  train. 

Still  more  complex  cases  occur,  in  which  some  motive, 
not  concerned  in  the  course  of  the  activity  up  to  the 
moment  of  obstruction,  is  then  aroused  and  adds  its 
force  to  the  force  of  the  motive  already  in  action.  I 
may  have  started  for  the  train  without  any  further  mo- 
tive than  that  it  is  my  routine  to  take  it.  But  when  an 
obstruction  threatens  to  prevent  my  catching  it,  I  may 
remember  that  on  this  particular  day  I  have  an  im- 


FACTOR  OF  ORIGINALITY  151 

portant  engagement  which  will  be  missed  if  I  fail  to 
catch  this  train;  and  this  additional  motive  lends  in- 
creased energy  to  my  efforts.  Or,  my  self-esteem  may 
be  touched,  since  it  would  be  humiliating  to  miss  the 
train.  Or  again,  my  ideal  of  myself  as  one  who  can  be 
depended  upon  to  meet  his  engagements  may  awake; 
and  some  of  the  deepest  forces  in  my  personality  may 
thus  be  drawn  into  an  action  that  was  at  first  quite 
superficial  in  its  motivation. 

The  obstructions  thus  far  spoken  of  have  been  exter- 
nal to  the  individual;  but  this  is  not  true  of  all,  and  in 
fact  some  of  the  most  serious  will  problems  arise  from 
inner  obstruction,  from  the  conflict  of  two  tendencies. 
If  the  tendencies  are  about  equally  balanced,  the  con- 
flict is  vexatious  while  it  lasts,  and  it  is  very  apt  to  end 
in  an  unsatisfactory  way,  one  tendency  getting  the 
advantage,  while  the  other,  not  entirely  quieted  down, 
remains  to  upset  the  equilibrium.  The  conflict  is  some- 
times resolved  by  a  rational  process  effecting  a  coordina- 
tion between  the  opposing  tendencies  and  making  pos- 
sible the  satisfaction  of  both  in  some  inclusive  activity. 
Sometimes,  again,  one  tendency  is  subordinated  to  the 
other,  or  it  may  be  put  off  and  quieted  by  the  promise 
that  its  turn  will  come  later.  One  who  has  difificulty  in 
getting  up  in  the  morning  may  manage  it  by  promising 
himself  that  he  will  go  back  to  bed  after  breakfast — 
probably  forgetting  the  promise  when  once  thoroughly 
awake.  But  sometimes  a  tendency  refuses  to  be  put  off 
or  subordinated  or  coordinated;  it  must  either  prevail 
or  be  suppressed.  Even  such  conflicts  are  sometimes 
resolved,  and  one  of  two  irreconcilable  tendencies  made 
to  yield  to  the  other.    This  probably  can  only  be  ac- 


152  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

complished  by  the  coming  into  action  of  some  drive 
other  than  the  two  at  first  in  conflict  and  throwing  its 
force  on  one  side  or  the  other.  Thus  far-reaching  plans 
of  life  or  personal  ideals  may  be  drawn  into  the  conflict 
and  administer  a  check  to  an  injudicious  or  unworthy 
tendency  which  is  momentarily  insistent. 

Freedom  of  the  will  is  a  topic  now  generally  relegated 
to  philosophy.  In  the  sense  of  being  uncaused  and 
unconditioned,  freedom  is  certainly  an  uncongenial  con- 
cept to  dynamic  psychology,  whose  aim  it  is  to  seek  for 
causes.  We  may,  perhaps,  speak  of  the  will  as  free  in 
somewhat  the  same  sense  as  we  call  reasoning  original. 
Obstruction  is  overcome  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other. 
Internal  sources  of  energy  are  tapped,  and  in  overcom- 
ing external  obstructions  the  individual  reveals  his 
independence,  as  in  resolving  inner  conflict  he  may  re- 
veal the  independence  of  his  higher  or  more  inclusive 
self  as  against  tendencies  less  closely  integrated  with 
the  self.  As  reasoning  makes  a  new  use  of  inner  re- 
sources, so  willing  gets  hold  in  a  new  way  of  the  inner 
driving  forces  of  the  individual.  As  the  originality  of 
reasoning  is  limited  in  that  it  cannot  pass  the  bounds  of 
one's  inner  capacities  nor  the  bounds  of  the  real  world, 
so  the  freedom  of  the  will,  it  would  seem,  is  limited  to  the 
forces  inherent  in  the  individual's  nature,  as  its  effec- 
tiveness is  limited  by  the  general  forces  of  nature  of 
which  the  individual  is  a  part. 


VII 

DRIVE  AND  MECHANISM  IN  ABNORMAL 
BEHAVIOR 

In  an  earlier  lecture,  when  the  course  of  the  modem 
movement  in  psychology  was  being  traced,  interest  in 
abnormal  mental  conditions  was  mentioned  as  one  of 
the  streams  that  have  contributed  in  an  important  way 
to  the  general  movement.  The  modem  tendency  has 
been  to  get  away  from  the  speculative  consideration  of 
mental  affairs,  and  to  follow  the  lead  of  the  other 
sciences  in  basing  conclusions  upon  observed  and  re- 
corded facts.  Abnormal  mental  conditions  offer  a  great 
mass  of  facts  for  observation,  and  the  need  of  taking 
account  of  these  facts,  in  any  adequate  treatment  of 
mental  life,  has  been  one  of  the  forces  driving  psychol- 
ogy to  the  scientific  attitude.  When  this  mass  of  facts 
first  began  to  be  presented  to  the  consideration  of 
psychologists,  they  were  inclined  to  reject  it  as  some- 
thing lying  outside  their  proper  sphere.  Psychology, 
they  asserted,  was  concerned  with  the  normal  workings 
of  the  mind,  and  had  best  keep  itself  clear  of  the  ab- 
normal, lest  it  become  confused  by  what  are  certainly 
very  puzzling  phenomena,  and,  in  trying  to  embrace 
the  abnormal  in  its  view,  fail  to  get  a  clear  vision  of 
either  normal  or  abnormal.  But  this  attitude  of  opposi- 
tion could  not  be  maintained  in  the  face  of  the  enormous 
accumulation  of  data  resulting  from  the  ever-increasing 
study  of  abnormal  mentality  by  the  physician. 


154  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

The  primary  interest  in  mental  disorders  was  the 
practical  desire  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of  the  suf- 
ferer, and  the  observations  in  this  field  were  accordingly 
made  by  that  fraction  of  the  medical  profession  that 
devoted  itself  to  the  specialty  of  nervous  and  mental 
diseases.  That  was  true  at  the  beginning,  and  is  true 
in  the  main  today,  though  we  find  a  certain  number  of 
professed  psychologists  taking  a  hand  in  the  direct  study 
of  abnormal  mental  conditions.  In  the  main,  pathologi- 
cal psychology  has  developed  rather  independently  of 
general  psychology,  and  has  made  only  a  perfunctory 
use  of  it.  The  psychiatrists  have  adopted  some  of  its 
phraseology,  and  endeavored  to  classify  abnormal  men- 
tal conditions  under  psychological  headings,  but  they 
have,  as  a  whole,  remained  surprisingly  out  of  touch 
with  what  was  being  accomplished  by  the  students  of 
normal  psychology.  Perhaps  it  would  be  fairer  to  say 
that  they  found  little  to  their  purpose  in  the  text  books 
of  normal  psychology,  and  so,  after  making  it  a  bow  of 
recognition,  went  about  their  own  business  in  their  own 
way.  On  their  side,  the  professed  psychologists  have 
usually  felt  themselves  rather  out  of  touch  with  psycho- 
pathology.  They  have  recognized  the  great  mass  of 
facts  accumulated  on  the  subject  of  abnormal  mentality, 
but  have  not  themselves  had  a  direct  enough  knowledge 
of  those  facts  to  warrant  their  attempting  to  system- 
atize them,  while  they  have  regarded  with  some  scepti- 
cism the  generalizations  and  theories  of  physicians  re- 
garding the  psychology  of  abnormal  conditions.  It  is 
time,  without  doubt,  that  these  two  lines  of  psychologi- 
cal investigation  came  more  completely  into  touch  with 
each  other.     The  difficulty  is  for  either  party  to  find 


ABNORMAL  BEHAVIOR  155 

the  time  to  make  a  first-hand  acquaintance  with  the 
materials  in  the  possession  of  the  other — for  the  psychol- 
ogist to  find  time  to  make  a  serious  study  of  insane  and 
neurotic  individuals,  and  for  the  psychiatrist  to  find 
time  to  work  in  the  psychological  laboratory.  Mean- 
while, the  psychologist  cannot  remain  indifferent  to  the 
facts  presented  by  the  psychopathologist.  There  is 
much  there  that  aids  in  understanding  normal  mental 
life.  Especially,  there  is  much  there  bearing  on  the 
important  question  of  the  drives  or  motive  forces  opera- 
tive in  all  mental  life,  normal  or  abnormal.  Thus  far, 
experimental  psychology  has  done  much  more  with 
mechanisms  than  with  drives,  while  the  most  significant 
findings  of  psychopathology  have  been  concerned  with 
drives  rather  than  mechanisms.  The  two  thus  serve  as 
complements  of  each  other. 

Four  sorts  of  mental  abnormality  offer  themselves 
for  study.  The  simplest  case  is  that  of  mental  defect, 
and  the  most  complex  is  probably  that  of  insanity. 
There  are,  besides,  the  conditions  that  go  by  the  name 
of  neuroses,  and  those  that  go  by  the  name  of  the 
'psychopathology  of  every-day  life',  i.  e.,  minor  abnor- 
malities occurring  in  normal  individuals. 

In  mental  defect,  as  the  name  implies,  the  abnormal- 
ity consists  almost  or  quite  exclusively  in  a  lack.  The 
lack  is  one  of  intelligence,  or  at  least  shows  itself  in  that 
way.  According  to  the  degree  of  deficiency  of  intelli- 
gence, the  individual  is  classed  as  an  idiot,  an  imbecile,  or 
a  moron,  the  last  class  consisting  of  those  whose  intelli- 
gence is  not  far  below  the  level  that  might  be  called 
low  normal.  The  moron  or  feeble-minded  class  shades 
off  imperceptibly  into  the  more  stupid  of  the  great  class 


156  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

of  normal  individuals,  even  as  the  little-gifted  group  of 
normal  persons  merges  into  the  larger  group  of  average 
intelligence  and  this  in  turn  into  the  smaller  group  of 
superior  gifts.  The  whole  grouping  is,  indeed,  artifi- 
cial, with  no  sharp  line  anywhere.  The  mentally  de- 
ficient individual  differs  only  in  a  quantitative  way  from 
the  normal.  But  a  line  has  to  be  drawn  for  practical 
purposes,  and  the  attempt  is  to  draw  it  at  such  a  point 
as  to  divide  those  who  can  make  their  own  way  in  life 
from  those  who,  left  to  themselves,  cannot  get  along  in 
the  social  environment,  and  accordingly  need  supervi- 
sion in  their  own  interest  as  well  as  in  the  interests  of 
society  as  a  whole.  Society  is  concerned  because  mental 
deficiency  is  a  strong  factor  in  producing  pauperism, 
crime  and  prostitution,  industrial  accidents,  the  spread 
of  disease,  and  other  forms  of  human  misery,  because 
mental  deficiency  is  largely  the  result  of  heredity,  and 
because  the  mentally  deficient  are  prone  to  breed  abun- 
dantly, and  thus,  at  a  time  when  the  general  birth  rate 
tends  to  fall,  to  increase,  generation  after  generation, 
the  proportion  of  feeble-minded  in  the  population  and 
thus  the  amount  of  crime  and  misery.  For  these  rea- 
sons, it  is  obviously  incumbent  upon  society  to  provide 
public  institutions  or  supervision  for  all  the  mentally 
deficient,  with  the  object  both  of  making  their  lives  as 
happy  as  possible  and  of  preventing  them  from  damag- 
ing society  by  their  own  incompetency  and  by  breeding 
and  multiplying. 

The  psychology  of  mental  defect  seems  to  be  fairly 
simple,  though  undoubtedly  much  remains  to  be  dis- 
covered regarding  it.  As  regards  drives  and  mech- 
anisms, the  feeble-minded  person  is  deficient  in  both. 


ABNORMAL  BEHAVIOR  157 

It  will  be  remembered  that  we  have  insisted  all  along 
that  drives  and  mechanisms  were  not  fundamentally- 
different,  but  that  a  drive  was  itself  a  mechanism  which, 
once  aroused,  persisted  for  a  time  in  activity,  and  was 
able  in  turn  to  arouse  other  mechanisms.  The  feeble- 
minded person  is  deficient  in  mechanisms  because  he  is 
unable  to  learn  as  much  as  a  normal  person.  His  equip- 
ment is  therefore  scanty  and  becomes  scantier,  for  his 
age,  as  he  grows  up.  In  matter  of  equipment,  he  re- 
mains at  the  level  of  the  child,  or,  better,  at  different 
levels  of  childhood  according  to  the  degree  of  his  defect. 
However  strongly  he  is  driven,  then,  either  from  with- 
out or  by  his  own  motives,  he  simply  cannot  accomplish 
much,  not  having  the  mechanisms  for  accomplishing  it. 
But  he  is  lacking  in  motive  force  also.  He  is,  in  fact, 
notably  lacking  in  such  matters  as  a  life  plan  or  a  social 
or  family  interest,  which  are  so  important  as  drives  in 
the  normal  man.  For  lack  of  such  internal  drives,  he  is 
easily  led  astray  by  designing  persons,  and  is,  in  large 
measure,  a  creature  of  the  moment. 

The  other  types  of  mental  abnormality  cannot  be  so 
simply  conceived.  They  differ  qualitatively  rather  than 
quantitatively  from  the  normal.  They  are  distortions 
and  not  mere  defects  in  mentality.  Here  is  a  man,  for 
example,  who  believes  himself  to  be  Alexander  the 
Great,  prevented  from  taking  his  true  station  in  life 
by  a  combination  of  his  enemies.  No  doubt  such  a 
delusion  means  weakness  somewhere  in  the  mental 
make-up  of  the  subject;  but  weakness  alone  will  not 
explain  why  the  delusion  takes  a  certain  form.  There 
is  something  positive  about  a  delusion  that  depends  on 
the  activity  of  the  subject,  and  not  simply  on  his  lack 


158  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

of  activity.  When  we  attempt  to  trace  the  develop- 
ment of  such  a  delusion  in  the  individual's  history,  we 
very  likely  discover  that  he  has  always  been  rather  a 
peculiar  character,  self-conceited  and  suspicious  of  other 
people,  not  by  any  means  a  'good  mixer'.  His  inability 
to  get  along  with  other  people  was  the  first  sign  of  weak- 
ness in  his  make-up.  His  social  perception  was  poor; 
he  did  not  understand  other  people's  actions  readily 
and  correctly.  He  pleased  himself  by  interpretations  of 
their  behavior  unfavorable  to  them  but  favorable  to  his 
high  opinion  of  himself.  They  slighted  him,  as  he  con- 
ceived, because  they  were  unwilling  to  recognize  his 
superior  qualities.  He  thus  built  up  for  himself  a  false 
conception  of  the  social  environment  in  which  he  moved, 
and  got  more  and  more  out  of  touch  with  it.  From 
isolated  suspicions  and  misinterpretations,  he  grew  into 
an  organized  system  of  suspicion  and  false  interpreta- 
tion. The  most  trivial  actions  were  interpreted  as  sig- 
nificant of  an  attitude  of  hostility  towards  himself.  A 
stranger  coughing  at  an  adjoining  table  in  a  restaurant 
might  elicit  the  angry  demand,  "How  dare  3^ou  cough 
at  me?  I  will  not  stay  here  to  be  insulted."  If  an  ac- 
quaintance offered  the  least  criticism,  that  was  evi- 
dently an  unfriendly  act;  if  he  made  himself  agreeable, 
that  was  simply  to  divert  suspicion  and  conceal  his 
unfriendliness.  This  system  of  suspicions  was  organ- 
ized about  an  overweening  self-conceit  as  its  core. 
There  was  a  great  exaggeration  of  his  own  ability  and 
importance,  though  as  yet  no  definite  delusion  regarding 
his  identity.  Now  let  the  subject  overhear  someone 
mentioning  the  name  of  Alexander  the  Great.  In  ac- 
cordance with  his  system,  he  tends  to  believe  that  the 


ABNORMAL  BEHAVIOR  159 

remark  has  some  reference  to  him;  and  in  accordance 
with  his  sense  of  his  own  importance,  he  is  easily  led 
to  the  conjecture  that  people  are  saying  that  he  re- 
sembles Alexander  the  Great  in  appearance  or  ability 
or  some  other  respect.  As  he  ruminates  over  this  sig- 
nificant remark,  the  idea  flashes  over  him  that  he  is 
Alexander  the  Great,  and  this  grandiose  idea  gives  him 
such  satisfaction  and  so  clarifies  the  whole  mass  of  his 
suspicions,  that  he  makes  it  his  own,  slurring  over  its 
improbabilities,  and  dwelling  on  whatever  makes  it 
seem  possible.  Now,  at  last,  he  understands  why  he  is 
slighted  and  persecuted.  He  is  this  great  personage, 
and  more  or  less  clearly  known  to  be  such  by  his  asso- 
ciates, who,  however,  are  naturally  unwilling  to  exalt 
him  so  far  above  themselves,  and  therefore  try  to  keep 
him  down.  Recalling  the  events  of  his  past  life  in  the 
light  of  this  new  insight,  he  finds  a  thousand  incidents 
that  point  towards  the  great  fact,  and  organizes  the 
whole  of  his  social  experience  around  this  delusion  of 
his  own  great  personality.  He  may  still  not  have 
reached  the  point  when  he  is  ready  to  act  upon  his 
delusion  or  give  open  expression  to  it,  and  in  rare  cases 
he  may  carry  the  delusion  concealed  within  him  for 
years,  but  eventually  his  behavior  is  so  affected  by  it 
that  he  is  recognized  as  insane.  This  is  the  type  of 
insanity  called  'paranoia',  rather  an  uncommon  type, 
though  similar  delusions,  less  completely  worked  out, 
are  frequent  in  other  forms  of  insanity. 

If  we  attempt  to  restate  the  behavior  of  the  paranoiac 
in  terms  of  dynamic  psychology,  we  see,  for  one  thing, 
that  the  delusion,  once  fully  formed,  becomes  part  of 
the  learned  equipment  of  the  subject.    He  acquired  it 


i6o  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

by  a  long  process  of  learning.  Once  formed,  it  acts  as 
a  drive,  facilitating  acts  and  perceptions  that  would 
otherwise  be  possible  but  not  probable,  and  inhibiting 
others  that  would  otherwise  probably  occur.  The  delu- 
sion acts  as  a  permanent  bias  in  interpreting  the  actions 
of  other  people.  But  there  must  have  been  some  drive 
activating  the  process  by  which  the  delusion  was  ac- 
quired; this  drive  was  undoubtedly  the  demand  for 
social  recognition,  which  can  itself  be  traced  back,  in 
part,  to  the  self-asserting  or  dominating  instinct.  We 
are  tempted  to  conclude  that  it  was  because  the  demand 
for  social  recognition  was  more  insistent  in  this  indi- 
vidual than  in  other  men  that  the  delusion  was  gen- 
erated ;  but  such  a  conclusion  overlooks  the  element  of 
weakness  in  the  paranoiac's  make-up.  From  the  begin- 
ning he  showed  a  deficient  power  of  understanding 
others  and  adapting  himself  to  them;  this  weakness 
created  obstacles  to  the  gratification  of  his  demand  for 
social  recognition,  and  it  was  in  trying  to  overcome 
these  obstacles  that  the  suspicions,  inordinate  conceit, 
and  delusions  of  persecution  and  of  greatness  were 
generated.  The  process  of  acquiring  the  delusion  was 
in  fact  none  other  than  our  old  friend,  learning  by  trial 
and  error.  Like  the  cat  in  the  cage,  the  incipient  par- 
anoiac faced  a  baffling  situation.  Demanding  what  we 
have  briefly  called  social  recognition,  he  was  prevented 
by  obstacles  lying  within  himself,  but  not  so  understood 
by  him,  from  reaching  his  goal.  Varied  exploratory 
reactions  were  the  natural  result,  one  of  them  being 
the  interpretation  of  the  indifference  of  others  as  dic- 
tated by  their  jealousy  of  his  own  superiority.  So  in- 
terpreted, the  behavior  of  others  became  a  form  of 


ABNORMAL  BEHAVIOR  l6i 

recognition ;  and  thus  the  demand  for  social  recognition 
was  in  a  measure  met.  It  was  met  still  better  by  the 
delusion  of  greatness.  Scarcely  anything  could  more 
fully  gratify  self-conceit  than  the  conviction  that  one 
was  a  very  great  person,  temporarily  prevented  from 
taking  one's  rightful  place  in  the  world  by  a  combination 
of  ill-wishers,  but  destined,  no  doubt,  to  escape  from 
this  net  of  intrigue  and  to  compel  recognition.  Thus, 
by  delusion,  the  paranoiac  escaped  from  his  cage,  and 
his  escape,  though  unreal,  was  so  satisfactory  to  him  as 
to  terminate  the  trial  and  error  process,  and  remain  as 
a  fixed  form  of  reaction  to  the  social  environment. 

What  happens  in  the  delusions  happens  in  various 
other  types  of  abnormal  behavior.  We  have  to  suspect, 
In  each  case,  that  there  is  some  drive  behind  the  develop- 
ment of  the  abnormal  reaction.  It  will  be  funda- 
mentally a  normal  drive,  one  that  operates  in  all  men. 
We  have  to  suspect  also  an  obstruction  barring  the  way 
to  the  goal  towards  which  the  drive  is  directed,  an  ob- 
struction internal  to  the  Individual  and  due  to  weakness 
in  his  make-up.  Thus  Involved  in  a  puzzling  situation, 
he  goes  through  a  trial  and  error  process,  and,  being 
unable  because  of  his  own  weakness  to  find  a  really 
appropriate  solution  of  the  problem,  adopts  some  sub- 
stitute solution  that  gives  an  illusory  success,  and  thus 
satisfies  the  drive  and  permits  its  tension  to  relax. 

Besides  this  elaborate  trial  and  error  process,  there 
are  simpler  processes  leading  to  abnormal  behavior. 
Some  such  behavior  follows  the  type  of  the  conditioned 
reflex,  as  was  neatly  shown  in  MacKensIe's  experiment 
on  a  hay  fever  patient. ^    A  person  subject  to  hay  fever 

1  Cited  by  Morton  Prince,  Journal  of  Abnormal  Psychology,  1908, 
III,  270. 


i62  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

brought  on  by  the  chemical  influence  of  roses  had  a 
typical  attack  on  being  suddenly  shown  some  roses 
made  of  paper.  Evidently  the  sight  of  roses,  from 
being  constantly  associated  with  their  chemical  effect, 
had  acquired  the  power  to  produce  the  reaction.  There 
are  many  instances  of  this  general  sort.  Another 
fairly  simple  type  is  the  habit  neurosis,  in  which  the 
abnormal  reaction,  having  been  for  some  reason  made 
several  times,  has  acquired  the  force  of  a  habit.  A 
habit  is  a  drive,  as  we  see  from  the  tension  and  un- 
easiness that  occur  when  a  habitual  reaction  is  called 
for  but  prevented  from  realizing  itself.  To  perform 
a  habitual  action  gives  satisfaction;  or,  at  least,  to 
forego  the  performance  brings  dissatisfaction  and  un- 
easiness. This  is  seen  in  attempting  to  break  such  a 
habit  as  smoking.  There  may  be  little  craving  for  the 
drug,  but  there  is  a  craving  for  the  habitual  act,  and  a 
feeling  of  irritation  when  it  is  prevented  from  occurring. 
Such  phenomena  occur  also  in  the  neuroses.  But  a 
fully  fledged  neurosis  is  more  complex  than  a  con- 
ditioned reflex  or  habit,  involving  in  its  development 
a  drive,  an  obstruction  due  to  inherent  weakness,  and 
trial  and  error  leading  to  some  substitute  for  real 
mastery  of  the  situation. 

The  substitute  reaction  is  made  possible  by  first  sub- 
stituting an  unreal  for  the  actual  situation.  Pierre 
Janet,  one  of  the  greatest  of  psychopathologists,  has 
strongly  insisted,  as  others  have  done  after  him,  on  this 
tendency  of  neurotics  to  neglect  the  real  world  about 
them — especially  the  world  of  people  and  daily  duties^ — 
and  to  substitute  for  it  a  world  'molded  to  their  heart's 
desire',  an  easier  and  simpler  world.     Not  having  the 


ABNORMAL  BEHAVIOR  163 

force  to  deal  with  their  real  work,  or  with  the  real 
people  about  them,  they  remodel  things  by  false  inter- 
pretations, or  leave  real  things  altogether  aside  to  im- 
merse themselves  in  imaginary  situations,  from  which 
the  obstruction  of  their  own  weakness  is  left  out,  so 
that  their  desires  can  reach  their  goal.  It  is  easy  to  be 
the  hero  in  a  day  dream  of  your  own  construction,  but 
to  resort  to  this  source  of  satisfaction  in  place  of  real 
deeds  in  the  real  world  is  a  mark  of  weakness.  This 
substitutive  activity,  carried  to  an  extreme,  is  definitely 
abnormal  and  neurotic. 

The  neurotic  individual  is  not  counted  as  insane,  be- 
cause he  is  not  definitely  deluded  or  disoriented  or  in- 
accessible to  rational  dealings.  Yet  he  may  be  in- 
capacitated for  work  or  normal  happy  living  and  social 
relations.  He  lives  to  too  great  an  extent  in  an  unreal 
world  of  his  own  construction.  He  has  met  his  life 
problems  by  solutions  that  satisfy  his  tendencies  in  a 
measure,  but  still  are  unsatisfactory  because  they  have 
left  out  of  account  essential  factors  in  the  real 
situation. 

In  the  manifold  variety  of  neuroses,  two  well-defined 
forms  stand  out,  and  are  often  regarded  as  types,  the 
others  being  regarded  as  approximations  to  these, 
though  this  is  quite  possibly  an  erroneous  way  of  con- 
ceiving the  matter,  since  we  generally  find,  in  studying 
individual  differences  and  peculiarities,  that  the  well- 
defined  'types'  are  really  extreme  variations  from  the 
real  type,  which  is  the  less  peculiar  and  more  average 
individual.  The  two  'types'  are  what  are  called  hysteria 
and  psychasthenia.  They  have  in  common  a  deficiency 
of  mental  energy,  or,  we  might  say,  a  deficiency  of  drive 


i64  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

or  motive  force.  This  deficiency  is  often  called  'abulia* 
or  lack  of  will. 

The  one  type  of  neurotic  individual,  the  hysteric, 
adjusts  himself  to  his  lack  of  motive  force  by  narrowing 
the  field  of  his  activity,  so  remaining  intense  in  a  nar- 
row field,  dissociated  or  split  off  from  the  rest  of  his 
life,  to  which  he  becomes  indifferent.  Some  system  of 
thoughts,  memories,  emotions,  and  tendencies  grips  him 
at  times  with  such  hallucinatory  vividness  as  to  make 
him  oblivious  to  his  surroundings,  while  he  lives  in  this 
system  and  acts  it  out,  it  may  be,  with  surprising 
dramatic  power.  When  he  comes  out  of  this  trance  or 
fit,  he  forgets  all  about  it  and  its  system  of  ideas,  etc. 
The  narrowness  of  his  'field  of  consciousness'  renders 
him  extremely  suggestible,  and  liable  to  peculiar  paraly- 
ses and  losses  of  sensation. 

The  psychasthenic,  on  the  contrary,  is  diffuse  rather 
than  narrow.  He  tries  to  keep  hold  of  everything,  but 
has  not  force  enough  to  make  anything  go  properly. 
He  doubts,  hesitates,  repeats,  ruminates,  feels  unreal 
and  unsure  of  himself.  On  the  basis  of  this  abulia  and 
insecurity  there  develop  more  or  less  well-defined  irra- 
tional fears,  ideas,  and  ways  of  acting,  which  are  to  be 
interpreted  either  as  substitutes  for  significant  acts 
which  he  has  not  the  force  to  undertake,  or  as  his  ways 
of  conceiving  the  difficulty  in  which  he  finds  himself. 
It  is  more  satisfactory  to  deal  with  a  definite  trouble 
than  with  an  undefined  feeling  of  strangeness  and  in- 
security, and  thus  the  queer  fears  and  fixed  ideas  of  these 
subjects  afford  them  some  satisfaction,  and  constitute 
a  sort  of  way  out  of  their  difficulties.  The  tendency  to 
escape  from  vague  uncertainty  into  some  sort  of  definite 


ABNORMAL  BEHAVIOR  165 

conception  of  things  is  a  real  driving  force  in  many  situ- 
ations in  life.  Substitute  reactions  can  perhaps  be 
understood  as  follows:  the  tendency  towards  a  certain 
activity — perhaps  the  daily  work — Is  aroused  to  some 
degree,  but  not  sufficiently  to  produce  actual  perform- 
ance, and  the  resulting  state  of  tension  is  relieved  by 
engaging  in  some  other,  easier  activity,  like  pacing 
restlessly  back  and  forth,  repeatedly  washing  the  hands 
instead  of  cleaning  the  house,  worrying  about  things 
instead  of  doing  them,  vowing  to  punish  oneself  if  one 
does  not  do  one's  task,  and  then  ruminating  over  the 
question  whether  it  Is  not  a  sin  to  make  such  vows. 
Following  up  this  general  line  of  interpretation,  Janet 
has  given  a  very  interesting  account  of  the  numerous 
eccentricities  of  the  psychasthenlc's  behavior.  The 
substitute  reaction  is  also,  as  already  suggested,  a 
Vay  out',  a  solution  of  a  problem  by  trial  and  error 
and  without  taking  account  of  all  the  essential  facts. 

Milder  symptoms  of  the  same  general  sort  occur  in 
persons  who  would  be  classed  as  normal  rather  than 
neurotic.  The  substitute  reaction  Is  very  common  when 
a  difficult  task  has  to  be  performed,  or  an  unpalatable 
truth  to  be  digested.  One  who  has  a  disagreeable  duty 
to  perform  is  apt  to  find  good  reasons  for  delay.  It  is 
not  uncommon,  for  example,  that  writers,  except  under 
strong  stimulus  or  when  they  have  become  well  'warmed 
up  to  It',  find  writing  an  irksome  task.  Such  a  one,  sit- 
ting down  to  his  desk  or  typewriter,  will  have  all  sorts 
of  other  things  occur  to  him  that  he  ought  to  attend  to 
first.  Or,  he  may  run  over  in  his  mind  what  he  means 
to  write,  and  get  two  or  three  pages  planned  out  almost 
word  for  word ;  but  as  soon  as  he  makes  a  move  to  write, 


l66  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

the  seriousness  of  actually  committing  it  to  paper  gives 
him  a  check  and  he  proceeds  to  think  it  over  again,  and 
soon  finds  himself  once  more  two  or  three  pages  ahead. 
It  seems  to  be  much  easier  for  him  to  think  out  what 
he  is  going  to  write  after  a  while  than  to  'get  right  down* 
to  writing.  Another  form  of  substitute  reaction  often 
appears  in  solving  such  a  problem  as  that  of  'making 
both  ends  meet'.  Instead  of  sticking  to  the  hard  facts, 
one  is  apt  to  imagine  something  'turning  up'  and  re- 
lieving the  whole  difficulty,  and  this  imaginary  situation 
substituted  for  the  real  one  may  give  quite  a  glow  of 
satisfaction. 

Traits  that  are  scarcely  other  than  abnormal  often 
occur  in  the  relations  of  one  normal  person  with 
another.  The  cherishing  of  imaginary  slights  and  griev- 
ances is  a  curious  example.  It  certainly  seems  perverse 
to  derive  satisfaction  from  imagining  oneself  ill-treated ; 
yet  this  is  a  common  form  of  satisfaction.  The  subject 
pictures  himself  as  the  suffering  hero  in  a  way  that  re- 
minds us  of  the  delusions  of  persecution ;  and  probably 
the  explanation  is  much  the  same.  There  is  an  element 
of  weakness  lurking  here,  a  doubt  as  to  one's  own  com- 
petency as  a  friend  or  lover;  and  there  is  a  sort  of  sub- 
stitute reaction,  in  that  refuge  is  sought  in  imagined 
grievances  instead  of  frankly  and  directly  doing  some 
friendly  or  loverlike  act. 

Freud,  one  of  the  most  influential  ps^^chopathologists 
of  the  day,  has  fixed  his  attention  on  quite  another  type 
of  abnormality  occurring  in  normal  persons.  This  type 
is  represented  by  the  slip  of  the  tongue,  the  lapse  of 
memory,  or  the  'symptomatic  act',  which,  done  'unin- 
tentionally', betrays  some  hidden  or  even  unconscious 


ABNORMAL  BEHAVIOR  167 

motive.  Freud's  reason  for  classing  as  abnormal  so 
trivial  a  thing  as  a  slip  of  the  tongue  is,  first  that  it  is 
a  slip,  but  second,  and  more  important,  that  he  con- 
ceives it  to  be  a  disturbance  produced  by  the  'uncon- 
scious', the  source,  also,  according  to  his  way  of  think- 
ing, of  all  neurotic  behavior. 

His  conception  of  the  matter  is  about  as  follows. 
Suppress  a  tendency,  forbid  it  to  have  its  way,  and  you 
drive  it  from  consciousness  without  eliminating  it 
from  your  system.  It  remains  as  part  of  your  'uncon- 
scious'; it  is  partially  aroused  at  times  by  appropriate 
stimuli,  but  sternly  restrained  by  your  dominating 
conscious  self — ^not,  however,  without  causing  a  passing 
disturbance  in  the  activities  of  the  conscious  self.  Dur- 
ing sleep,  the  unconscious  has  a  better  chance,  but  even 
then  cannot  come  out  into  the  open,  but  has  to  disguise 
its  illicit  tendencies  in  the  symbolism  of  dreams. 
Neurotic  symptoms  are  analogous  to  these  disturbances 
but  more  serious  and  persistent.  By  a  process  of 
'psychoanalysis',  in  which  the  subject,  under  the  guid- 
ance of  the  analyst,  relaxes  the  restraint  and  allows  the 
unconscious  tendencies  to  show  themselves  openly,  they 
are,  after  much  patience,  discovered  and  understood, 
with  the  happy  result  that  they  cease  plaguing  the  sub- 
ject. The  suppressed  tendencies  that  are  thus  brought 
to  light  are  sexual  in  nature,  and  date  back  to  early 
childhood,  though  the  fundamental  infantile  tendencies 
are  simply  the  nucleus  of  a  host  of  particular  sexual  im- 
pulses that,  having  from  time  to  time  been  repressed, 
people  the  underworld  of  the  unconscious.  What  can 
be  done  with  these  tendencies,  once  they  are  recognized 
by  the  subject,  is  to  'sublimate'  them,  draining  off  their 


l68  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

motive  force  into  other  channels,  thus  allowing  them  an 
outlet  satisfactory  to  the  conscious  self  and  doing  away 
with  the  disturbances  that  they  have  previously  caused 
in  seeking  an  outlet. 

The  main  points  of  the  Freudian  psychology — in- 
fantilism, the  importance  of  sex  impulses,  and  repression 
into  the  'unconscious' — all  have  an  element  of  truth, 
but  are  all  over-emphasized  to  the  neglect  of  other  fac- 
tors that  should  be  included  to  give  a  true  picture.  As 
to  infantilism:  while  there  is  no  doubt  a  continuity  in 
the  individual's  experience  and  tendencies  from  birth 
to  adult  life,  new  motive  forces  are  developed,  as  we 
have  tried  to  show  in  another  chapter,  and  the  new 
motives  have  force  of  their  own  and  not  simply  force 
derived  from  the  instincts.  The  sex  tendencies  of  young 
children  are  much  over-emphasized  by  Freud,  being 
read  into  the  behavior  of  children  from  the  standpoint 
of  an  adult  and  not  fairly  inferred  from  the  behavior 
of  the  child  itself.  The  'unconscious'  is  certainly  over- 
drawn by  Freud.  Slips  and  lapses,  as  well  as  dreams,  are 
due  in  the  main  to  quite  other  causes  than  those  which 
he  gives  them.  And  as  to  the  sexual  impulse,  while  this 
tendency  is  certainly  influential  in  most  individuals,  it 
is  only  one  among  many  tendencies  that  drive  human 
activity.  Freud  formally  admits,  indeed,  two  motive 
forces,  sex  and  the  'instinct  of  self-preservation',  but 
our  consideration  of  instinct  revealed  many  more  than 
two  tendencies  in  native  equipment,  and  the  reality 
of  learned  or  acquired  drives  must  also  be  insisted  on. 
The  adult  individual  contains  a  multitude  of  drives,  some 
more  important  than  others,  some  dating  from  his  native 
equipment,  some  developed  from  time  to  time  on  the 


ABNORMAL  BEHAVIOR  169 

basis  of  native  equipment,  but  having  force  of  their  own, 
once  they  are  developed,  and  not  needing  to  draw  upon 
the  motive  force  of  the  native  tendencies.  The  Freudian 
treatment  of  drives  is  thus  very  far  from  adequate. 

In  practice,  moreover,  it  is  always  the  sex  tendency 
that  is  emphasized  by  Freud  and  his  followers.  Wher- 
ever they  are  able  to  detect  a  sex  tendency  hidden  in  a 
certain  activity,  that  settles  the  matter  for  them;  the 
sex  tendency  is  the  real  driving  force  and  the  other  ap- 
parent motives  are  mere  disguises  of  the  sex  tendency. 
They  do  not  recognize  the  reality  of  'mixed  motives'. 
If  the  sex  tendency  is  present,  it  is  credited  with  doing 
the  whole  work. 

There  is  an  atmosphere  of  the  mysterious  about  all 
this  that  renders  the  Freudian  psychology  at  once  rather 
fascinating  and  difficult  to  deal  with  on  a  strictly  scien- 
tific basis.  It  is  easy  to  'shoo'  the  whole  thing  away  as 
unscientific,  and  the  line  of  evidence  brought  forward 
in  support  of  it  deserves  this  summary  treatment,  but 
it  is  not  so  easy  to  handle  the  questions  raised  by  the 
Freudians  so  judiciously  as  to  extract  the  truth  in  their 
teachings  and  leave  aside  the  dross'.  In  the  case  of 
*mixed  motives',  for  example,  the  question  is  how,  in 
the  interests  of  psychological  progress,  to  deal  with  a 
man  who,  unearthing  a  sex  impulse  in  a  complex  activ- 
ity, straightway  insists  that  this  furnishes  the  whole 
driving  force  and  all  other  apparent  motives  are  shams. 
Perhaps  a  suitable  way  of  meeting  such  a  contention  is 
to  take  behavior  that  is  primarily  and  admittedly  driven 
by  the  sex  motive,  and  see  whether  other  motives  do  not 
enter  even  here  to  modify  behavior  and  give  it  more 
variety  and  interest. 


I70  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

Human  sex  behavior  shows  the  presence  of  several 
other  motives  in  addition  to  the  genuine  sex  impulse. 

Curiosity  is,  in  youth,  blended  with  the  sex  impulse  in 
the  first  excursions  into  sex  behavior,  and  in  maturity 
as  well  the  element  of  novelty  in  a  sex  stimulus  gives  it 
additional  force.  In  fact,  without  novelty  this  impulse 
is  often  not  arousable.  Hence,  infidelity  and  many 
peculiarities  of  sex  behavior.  The  spirit  of  independence 
and  rebellion  against  authority  is  also  associated  with 
the  sex  impulse,  especially  in  youth.  As  in  the  case  of 
curiosity,  this  accessory  drive  cannot  be  derived  from 
the  sex  impulse,  since  it  appears  in  many  other  ways 
and  not  simply  with  reference  to  sex.  Clandestine  love 
is  especially  attractive  to  youth,  apparently  because  of 
the  admixture  of  this  motive  of  independence ;  love-mak- 
ing carried  on  under  the  noses  of  those  who  would  object 
has  an  extra  spice.  Much  of  the  sex  behavior  of  young 
people  can  only  be  accounted  for  by  taking  into  account 
the  attractiveness  of  the  novel  and  the  forbidden.  If 
the  sex  impulse  alone  were  in  action,  the  resulting  be- 
havior would  be  much  more  direct  than  it  is.  The  essen- 
tial illicitness  of  sex  behavior  is  a  curious  pretense,  kept 
up  even  between  husband  and  wife  in  the  interest  of 
greater  zest,  and  kept  up  even  by  those  writers  who,  in 
theory,  most  emancipate  themselves  from  the  social 
restrictions  on  sex  behavior,  but  who,  in  the  practice  of 
their  art,  needing  to  make  sex  matters  interesting,  invest 
them  as  much  as  possible  with  an  atmosphere  of  illicit- 
ness and  so  add  piquancy  to  their  stories. 

The  protective  impulses,  as  McDougall  says,  though 
most  definitely  aroused  by  the  infant  and  therefore 
identified  with  the  parental  instinct,  are  aroused  also 


ABNORMAL  BEHAVIOR  I7I 

by  other  persons  than  children,  when  we  can  adopt  a 
protective  attitude  towards  them.  It  is  very  clear  that 
a  man  Hkes  to  consider  himself  the  protector  of  the 
woman  he  loves ;  and  this  is  not  simply  the  sex  impulse, 
for  that  may  be  present  with  little  or  no  impulse  to  pro- 
tect, and  indeed  with  a  brutal  disregard  of  the  welfare 
of  its  object.  But  in  the  higher  type  of  love,  the  ele- 
ment of  protectiveness  comes  into  play.  The  man  likes 
to  protect  the  woman,  and  she,  too,  likes  to  'mother* 
him.  In  her  case,  indeed,  the  maternal  or  mothering 
instinct  often  plays  the  leading  part  in  the  early  stages 
of  love;  while,  in  a  happily  mated  pair,  the  protective 
motive,  persisting  in  both  parties,  furnishes  an  impor- 
tant part  of  the  drive  behind  their  mutual  interest  and 
affection. 

The  instinctive  tendencies  of  domination  and  submis- 
sion are  also  linked  with  the  sex  impulse  to  produce  the 
complex  motive  force  which  we  call  'love'.  Theirs  is  the 
satisfaction  of  ownership  and  the  satisfaction  of  being 
owned.  Desire,  here  as  elsewhere,  is  stimulated  by  un- 
certainty of  possession.  Undisputed  possession  leads 
to  'negative  adaptation'  in  respect  to  the  sense  of  pos- 
session, and  to  consequent  waning  of  desire,  which  can 
often  be  re-awakened  by  the  revival  of  uncertainty  as  to 
possession.  At  the  lowest  level,  the  dominating  ten- 
dency is  satisfied  by  brute  physical  compulsion,  at  a 
higher  stage  willing  submission  is  essential,  and  at  a  still 
higher  stage  recognition  on  the  part  of  the  loved  object 
of  one's  own  personal  merits,  as  is  evidenced  by  the 
sensitiveness  of  lovers  to  any  fancied  slight  or  criticism. 

That  the  esthetic  impulses  are  also  closely  associated 
with  the  sex  impulse,  is  seen  especially  in  the  interest  in 


172  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

the  personal  beauty  of  the  loved  person.  The  sex  im- 
pulse is  undoubtedly  in  part  the  drive  behind  apprecia- 
tion of  beauty,  as  man  is  more  appreciative  of  feminine 
and  woman  of  manly  beauty.  Yet  the  sense  for  per- 
sonal beauty  cannot  be  wholly  derived  from  the  sex 
interest,  since  there  is  nothing  in  the  latter  to  decide 
what  is  beautiful  and  what  lacking  in  beauty  in  most 
parts  of  the  body — the  face,  especially.  Moreover, 
appreciation  of  beauty  extends  in  some  degree  to  one's 
own  sex. 

Art  has  been  asserted  by  some  would-be  psychologists 
to  be  motived  entirely  by  the  sex  interest;  and  the  in- 
fluence of  this  motive  is  indeed  clearly  present  in  paint- 
ing and  sculpture,  as  well  as  in  literature.  But,  as  in 
the  case  of  personal  beauty,  the  sex  impulse  does  not 
seem  capable  of  deciding  what  is  beautiful,  and,  fur- 
ther, not  all  subjects  of  art  can  be  related  to  the  sex 
impulse — landscapes,  for  example. 

Music,  likewise,  has  been  attributed  to  the  sex  mo- 
tive, and  its  early  association  with  dancing  has  been 
held  to  be  a  sufficient  ground  for  this  interpretation. 
But  not  all  dancing,  especially  of  primitive  peoples,  is 
related  to  sex,  some  of  it  being  related  to  war  or  to  other 
excitements — ^witness  the  child's  dancing  for  excite- 
ment. Moreover,  the  sex  motive  can  go  but  a  very  little 
way  in  explaining  musical  preferences  and  the  develop- 
ment of  music  from  its  crude  beginnings  to  the  condition 
of  a  highly  elaborated  art.  The  truth  is,  here  as  in  the 
other  cases,  that  the  esthetic  impulse  is  not  derived  from 
the  sex  impulse,  but  exists  independently  and  has  be- 
come secondarily  associated  with  it  in  certain  cases; 
and  the  association  is  not  entirely  a  spreading  of  the 


ABNORMAL  BEHAVIOR  '  173 

sex  drive  into  the  esthetic  sphere,  but  just  as  truly  a 
spreading  of  the  esthetic  motive  into  the  sphere  of  sex 
interests.  Art  has  taken  the  sex  motive  into  its  service, 
but  sex  has  equally  taken  the  art  motive  into  its  service. 
When  a  man  falls  in  love  with  a  beautiful  maiden,  he  is 
actuated  not  simply  by  the  sex  impulse,  but  also  by  in- 
terest in  personal  beauty.  At  its  lowest  stage,  desire  is 
unconcerned  with  any  personal  traits,  even  physical 
excellence  being  unnecessary,  provided  only  the  element 
of  sex  is  present,  but  at  a  higher  stage  the  esthetic  im- 
pulse must  also  be  satisfied,  and  excellence  of  disposi- 
tion, and  refinement  of  mind,  besides  physical  beauty, 
may  be  demanded. 

Why  do  young  people  like  to  dance?  What  motive 
drives  them  to  abandon  ease  and  comfort,  and  engage 
in  so  strenuous  an  activity?  Sex,  without  doubt,  fur- 
nishes a  large  share  of  the  motive  force,  but  if  it  were 
the  sole  motive,  why  should  they  trouble  themselves  to 
master  definite  steps,  and  keep  time  with  the  rhythm  of 
the  band,  and  why  should  there  be  any  band,  and,  if 
possible,  a  good  band?  Surely  part  of  the  motive  force 
is  the  love  for  rhythm  and  melody  and  harmony,  while 
part  is  the  love  for  well-ordered  motor  activity. 
Dancing  is  play,  and  part  of  its  driving  force  is  the  same 
as  that  which  makes  children  run  and  jump.  The  sex 
motive,  taken  by  itself,  is  distinctly  not  a  play  motive, 
and  when  it  is  strongly  aroused  and  unrestrained,  it 
casts  aside  the  elements  of  play  that  are  associated  with 
it  in  its  milder  manifestations.  Dancing,  like  many 
other  social  amusements,  draws  the  sex  motive  into  its 
service  to  give  added  spice  to  play,  but  without  other 
motives  these  amusements  simply  would  not  exist. 


174  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

Enough  has  been  said  of  sex  behavior  to  show  that 
the  forms  taken  by  it  in  human  kind  are  the  resultant 
of  a  plurality  of  motives,  among  which  the  sex  motive  is 
often  the  most  serious,  while  the  others  are  needed  to 
give  variety  and  interest.  If  this  is  true  of  behavior  that 
is  obviously  sexual,  it  can  scarcely  be  less  true  in  be- 
havior that,  seems  to  be  fundamentally  driven  by  quite 
other  motives.  Even  though  the  sex  motive  may  enter, 
in  some  obscure  way,  into  many  of  these  activities,  it 
is  futile  to  assert,  as  the  Freudians  seem  to  do,  that  the 
other  motives  are  mere  shams,  and  that  sex  furnishes  the 
whole  driving  force  wherever  it  is  present  at  all.  It  is  a 
mistake  to  overlook  the  importance  of  mixed  motives  in 
the  complex  forms  of  human  activity. 

Freud's  conceptions  of  suppression  and  sublimation 
would  be  of  capital  importance  in  a  dynamic  psychol- 
ogy, if  they  could  be  accepted  at  their  face  value.  The 
conception  of  suppression  aims  to  show  what  becomes 
of  motives  that  are  not  allowed  to  have  their  way.  They 
become  unconscious,  according  to  Freud,  but  still  have 
their  force  and  disturb  the  orderly  operation  of  other 
forces.  Suppression  somewhat  of  this  character  is  un- 
doubtedly a  fact,  not  only  in  relation  to  sex  impulses  but 
with  reference  to  curiosity,  anger,  and  other  motives. 
Suppressed  anger  will  sometimes  'smoulder  in  the 
bosom',  disturbing  other  activities  and  eventually 
breaking  out  in  deeds.  But  this  is  not  the  only  way  in 
which  rejected  motives  behave.  In  considering  the 
'factor  of  selection',  we  saw  the  great  frequency  with 
which  it  came  into  play,  and  the  universality  of  inhibi- 
tion of  one  tendency  as  part  of  the  process  of  choosing 
the  alternative.    Selection  and  inhibition  occur  at  prac- 


ABNORMAL  BEHAVIOR  1 75 

tically  every  moment  of  the  day.  Of  the  impulses  that 
are  inhibited,  most  simply  die  a  natural  death,  while 
some  are  depressed  rather  than  suppressed,  and  remain 
behind,  not  unconscious,  indeed,  but  also  not  strong,  so 
that  they  have  little  effect  on  the  further  course  of 
events.  This  is  the  rule,  and  suppression,  in  the 
Freudian  sense,  the  exception. 

Freud's  'sublimation'  is  an  attractive  concept.  It  is 
'nice'  to  believe  that  crude  motives,  that  cannot  be 
allowed  their  natural  outlet,  can  be  drained  off  into 
other  activities,  so  that  a  libidinous  infatuation,  sluiced 
out  of  its  natural  channel,  can  be  made  to  drive  the 
wheels  of  an  artistic  or  humanitarian  hobby.  But  there 
is  no  clear  evidence  that  this  can  be  accomplished. 
What  does  happen  sometimes  is  that,  in  the  effort  to 
escape  from,  and  distract  oneself  from,  a  strong  but 
unwelcome  impulse,  one  turns  to  some  other  activity 
capable  of  enlisting  interest;  and,  since  the  unwelcome 
impulse  is  not  easily  resisted,  one  has  to  become  as  ab- 
sorbed as  possible  in  this  other  activity.  Under  such 
conditions,  interest  in  this  other  activity  may  grow  into 
a  strong  motive  force  and  effectually  supplant  the  un- 
welcome impulse.  But  this  is  distinctly  not  making  the 
unwelcome  impulse  do  work  foreign  to  its  own  tendency. 
This  impulse  is  not  drawn  into  service,  but  is  resisted. 
If  there  were  no  other  and  contrary  motive  force,  the 
impulse  in  question  would  have  its  own  way.  We  did 
see  that  the  tendency  towards  a  'consummatory  reac- 
tion' acted  as  the  drive  to  other  mechanisms,  but  these 
were  mechanisms  that  subserved  the  main  tendency, 
whereas  'sublimation'  would  mean  that  the  tendency 
toward  a  certain  consummation  could  be  made  to  drive 


176  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

mechanisms  irrelevant  or  even  contrary  to  itself.  There 
seems  to  be  really  no  evidence  for  this,  and  it  probably 
is  to  be  regarded  as  a  distinctly  wrong  reading  of  the 
facts  of  motivation. 

Though  it  is  well  for  the  dynamic  psychologist  to 
scrutinize  closely  the  concepts  brought  forward  by 
those  who  are  closely  in  touch  with  the  intricate  and 
baffling  phenomena  of  the  insanities  and  neuroses,  and 
though  he  cannot  admit  the  claim  sometimes  made  that 
only  the  students  of  these  phenomena  are  in  a  position 
to  contribute  anything  to  the  psychology  of  human 
motives,  still  he  should  have  no  hesitation  in  admitting 
the  great  interest  and  stimulating  value  of  the  ideas 
coming  from  this  source,  and  he  should  fully  recognize 
the  necessity  he  is  under  of  contributing  to  a  psychology 
that  shall  hold  good  of  the  abnormal  as  well  as  the  nor- 
mal play  of  motive  forces. 


VIII 

DRIVE  AND  MECHANISM  IN  SOCIAL 
BEHAVIOR 

Looked  at  from  a  commonsense  point  of  view,  there  is 
no  part  of  human  behavior  that  is  more  interesting  and 
significant  than  the  behavior  of  larger  or  smaller  groups 
of  men.  From  the  scientific  point  of  view,  the  concep- 
tion of  social  behavior,  and  especially  that  of  social  con- 
sciousness, are  somewhat  puzzling,  since  the  question 
immediately  obtrudes  itself,  what  consciousness,  or 
what  behavior,  there  is  in  a  group  of  men  that  is  not 
the  consciousness  or  behavior  of  the  individual  members 
of  the  group.  Mystical  conceptions  of  the  social  mind 
can  find  no  favor  with  the  psychologists  of  today,  who 
belong  almost  wholly  to  the  hard-headed  variety.  We 
may  as  well  admit,  first  as  last,  that  there  is  no  over- 
consciousness  appertaining  to  the  group,  and  that  there 
is  no  activity  of  the  group  that  does  not  resolve  itself 
into  the  activities  of  its  members.  Why  then,  it  will  be 
asked,  should  we  speak  at  all  of  social  behavior,  and  set 
apart  a  section  of  our  psychology  as  the  chapter  on 
social  psychology? 

The  puzzle  may  be  resolved  by  considering  analogous 
cases  in  which  no  question  of  mind  or  consciousness  is 
present  to  complicate  the  matter.  Suppose  we  have 
three  dots  on  the  blackboard,  arranged  in  a  particular 
form,  triangular,  let  us  say.  Then  it  is  perfectly  true  to 
say  that  the  dots  are  all  there  is  there,  except  indeed  the 


178  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

homogeneous  spatial  medium.  Where  then  is  the  trian- 
gular form,  since  it  certainly  does  not  reside  in  any  one 
of  the  dots  taken  alone,  nor  in  the  three,  if  each  is  re- 
garded as  isolated  from  the  others?  The  triangular 
form  resides  in  the  arrangement  and  mutual  relations 
of  the  dots.  These  are  purely  static  relations,  but  if  we 
consider  the  actions  of  things,  we  find  similar  cases  of 
dynamic  relations  and  patterns.  A  ball  thrown  into 
the  air  is  acted  upon  by  the  initial  impulse  given  it,  per- 
sisting as  inertia  of  movement  and  tending  to  carry  it 
onward  ever  in  the  same  straight  line,  and  by  the  con- 
stant pull  of  gravity  downward,  as  well  as  by  the  resis- 
tance of  the  air.  It  moves,  accordingly,  in  a  curved  path. 
Now  the  curved  path  does  not  represent  the  working  of 
any  force  peculiar  to  itself;  there  is  simply  the  combina- 
tion of  the  three  elementary  forces  mentioned ;  but  in  a 
real  sense  there  is  something  in  the  total  action  besides 
the  isolated  action  of  three  forces,  namely,  their  joint 
action. 

In  the  same  way,  when  two  or  more  human  indi- 
viduals are  together,  their  mutual  relationships  and 
their  arrangement  into  a  group  are  facts  which  would 
not  be  disclosed  if  we  confined  our  attention  to  each 
individual  separately;  and,  when  they  act  together, 
upon  some  common  object — ^which  may  be  one  of  them- 
selves, or  some  other  person,  as  well  as  a  non-human 
object — the  combination  of  their  actions  is  a  fact  that 
could  not  be  observed  by  considering  the  individuals  one 
at  a  time. 

The  significance  of  group  behavior  is  greatly  increased 
in  the  case  of  human  kind  by  the  fact  that  some  of  the 
tendencies  to  action  of  the  individual  are  related  defi- 


SOCIAL  BEHAVIOR  179 

nitely  to  other  persons,  and  could  not  be  aroused  except 
by  other  persons  acting  as  stimuli.  An  individual  reared 
in  entire  isolation  would  not  reveal  his  competitive  ten- 
dencies, his  tendencies  towards  the  opposite  sex,  his 
protective  tendencies  towards  children.  Evidently  we 
should  never  get  an  adequate  picture  of  woman's 
nature  unless  we  observed  the  mother  with  her  child. 
This  is  the  most  striking  instance  of  the  general  law  that 
the  traits  of  human  nature  do  not  fully  manifest  them- 
selves until  the  individual  is  brought  into  relationship 
with  other  individuals. 

Social  psychology  has  then  to  consider  both  the  be- 
havior of  the  individual  as  far  as  this  is  aroused  and 
directed  by  the  stimulus  of  other  individuals,  and  the 
combination  of  the  activities  of  individuals  into  group 
activity.  In  respect  to  the  second  of  these  general  prob- 
lems, the  province  of  social  psychology  can  only  with 
difficulty,  if  at  all,  be  kept  distinct  from  that  of  so- 
ciology. 

On  the  side  of  motive  or  drive,  social  behavior  has 
long  been  a  puzzle  to  the  psychologist,  since  the  motives 
that  are  most  obviously  present  in  the  individual — apart 
from  the  parental  instinct — are  individualistic  or  self- 
seeking.  In  society,  the  individual  submits  to  some 
limitation  of  his  self-seeking  tendencies,  and  the  puzzle 
has  been,  to  find  the  motive  that  led  to  this  sub- 
missiveness. 

One  of  the  first  to  attempt  a  solution  of  this  problem 
was  Hobbes,  the  English  royalist  philosopher  of  the  time 
of  Charles  I  and  Cromwell.  He  could  discover  nothing 
in  man's  native  tendencies  to  limit  self-seeking,  and 
taught  that  the  natural  state  of  mankind  would  accord- 


l8o  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

ingly  be  a  'bellum  omnium  contra  omnes',  a  state  of 
unlimited  aggressiveness.  But  such  a  state  of  war  would 
defeat  its  own  end,  since  no  one  could  rest  secure  even 
of  his  life,  and  therefore  it  was  an  elementary  require- 
ment of  the  nature  of  things  that  men  should  limit  their 
individual  self-seeking,  and  come  to  some  understand- 
ing with  one  another  by  which  a  modicum  of  individual 
security  and  welfare  should  be  reached.  Stated  in  terms 
of  native  tendencies,  this  means,  as  Wallas  has  pointed 
out  in  his  critique  of  the  older  social  psychology,  ^  that 
social  behavior  is  motived  by  fear — fear  for  one's  own 
life  and  well-being  because  of  the  aggression  of  other 
men  seeking  the  same  things  for  themselves. 

It  would  not  indeed  be  necessary  to  suppose  that  this 
fear  is  present  as  an  active  emotion  in  every  dealing  of 
man  with  his  fellows.  A  limitation  of  self-seeking,  en- 
gendered at  first  by  calculating  fear,  would  become 
habitual  and  automatic.  The  actual  aggression  being 
suppressed  by  the  authority  submitted  to  by  a  group  of 
men  because  of  the  power  of  that  authority  to  suppress 
aggression,  there  would  develop  a  'negative  adaptation' 
to  the  presence  of  other  men,  just  as  a  kitten  becomes 
accustomed  to  the  presence  of  a  dog  in  the  house,  and 
ceases  to  fear  him. 

Such  an  interpretation  of  social  behavior,  however 
consistently  a  Hobbes  may  work  it  out,  and  however 
appropriate  it  may  appear  in  certain  disordered  states 
of  society,  is  almost  instinctively  rejected  by  any  one  of 
strong  social  tendencies.  It  leaves  no  room  for  any 
positive  attraction  towards  social  intercourse,  but  would 
make  the  fellow-man  a  danger  or  at  the  best  a  neutral- 

1  In  The  Great  Society. 


SOCIAL  BEHAVIOR  l8l 

ized  danger  to  be  regarded  with  indifference;  whereas 
the  fact  is,  without  doubt,  that  society  affords  a  positive 
satisfaction  to  the  majority  of  men.  Love  of  company  is 
a  fact  to  be  reckoned  with  in  any  attempt  to  analyze 
and  derive  the  social  motives. 

The  eighteenth  century,  with  its  greater  security  and 
prosperity,  offered  a  milder  substitute  for  this  hard 
social  psychology  of  the  seventeenth.  Jeremy  Bentham 
and  others  taught  that  man,  seeking  his  own  welfare, 
found  he  could  best  obtain  it  by  working  for  the  welfare 
of  his  fellows.  Instead  of  making  what  he  wanted  him- 
self, he  made  what  his  neighbor  required,  and  was  then 
able  to  exchange  products  with  his  neighbor  to  their 
mutual  advantage.  Perception  of  the  economic  advan- 
tage of  society  was  the  basis  of  society.  This  interpreta- 
tion, while  recognizing  no  native  drive  towards  social 
behavior,  but  only  a  motive  acquired  as  the  result  of 
experience,  does  at  least  leave  room  for  a  positive  at- 
tractiveness of  society.  My  neighbor  is  no  longer  simply 
a  potential  danger  more  or  less  restrained  by  authority, 
but  he  is  the  source  of  benefit  to  me  and  becomes  con- 
nected in  my  mind  with  that  benefit,  so  as  to  arouse  in 
me  a  positive  reaction  and  not  simply  avoidance  or  in- 
difference. Yet  this  economic  derivation  of  the  social 
motive  is  still  unsatisfactory.  It  leaves  the  matter 
about  as  follows :  I  desire  certain  goods  for  my  private 
consumption,  and,  having  found  that  I  can  secure  these 
from  my  neighbor  if  I  will  in  turn  provide  him  something 
he  desires  for  his  private  consumption,  I  willingly  be- 
come and  remain  a  member  of  a  society  which  makes 
such  mutual  help  possible.  'You  help  me  get  what  I 
want,  and  I'll  help  you  get  what  you  want*.    But  when 


l82  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

the  question  is  raised,  what  it  is  we  want,  and  an  answer 
sought  in  the  use  made  of  the  goods  obtained  by  mutual 
exchange,  we  find  that  the  consumption  is  not  so  strictly 
private  as  the  'mutual  help'  conception  requires.  Be- 
yond the  minimum  required  for  the  maintenance  of  life, 
a  large  share  of  consumption  has  a  social  character. 
Veblen^  has  emphasized  this  social  character  of  con- 
sumption in  rather  cynical  fashion  by  calling  it  'con- 
spicuous waste';  and  Taussig ^  has  called  attention  to 
the  fact  that  the  typical  'money-maker'  does  not  amass 
goods  to  enjoy  them  in  secret,  but  spends  largely  to 
outdo  his  rivals,  and  in  other  ways  to  win  himself  pres- 
tige and  social  recognition.  His  social  behavior  is  not 
confined  to  working  for  others  that  they  may  work  for 
him,  and  his  social  motive  is  not  simply  the  desire  for 
private  consumption;  for  he  shows  in  consumption  as 
well  as  in  production  a  social  interest,  not  accounted  for 
by  Bentham.  His  satisfactions  are  social,  as  well  as  the 
means  by  which  he  reaches  them.  The  selfish  needs 
which  he  labors  to  gratify  turn  out  to  be  needs  for  social 
intercourse  and  recognition.  Society  is  not  simply  a 
means  for  him,  but  an  end  as  well. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  another 
conception  of  the  social  force  was  put  forward,  first  per- 
haps by  Bagehot,  most  eloquently  by  Tarde,  most 
psychologically,  perhaps,  by  Baldwin.  They  believed 
they  had  found  the  socializing  force  in  imitation.  What 
characterizes  a  given  social  group  in  distinction  from 
other  groups  is  community  of  customs  and  manners, 

*  In  his  Theory  of  the  Leisure  Class  and  his  Imperial  Germany  and  the 
Industrial  Revolution. 

2  In  Inventors  and  Money-makers. 


SOCIAL  BEHAVIOR  183 

beliefs,  feelings,  and  purposes.  This  agreement  between 
individuals  in  a  group  goes  far  beyond  the  scope  of  in- 
stinctive behavior,  and  must  be  due  to  the  influence  of 
one  individual  upon  another,  of  the  older  generation 
upon  the  younger,  and  of  the  group  acting  as  a  mass  on 
the  individuals  composing  it.  One  individual  patterns 
his  conduct,  beliefs,  and  sentiments  on  those  of  another 
individual,  or  on  those  prevailing  in  the  group.  By  imi- 
tation of  what  is  current  in  a  group,  custom  and  tradi- 
tion are  maintained,  imitation  here  acting  as  a  conserva- 
tive agency.  By  imitation  of  an  individual  possessing 
prestige  by  virtue  of  his  eminence  in  some  respect,  new 
manners  and  beliefs  may  be  spread  throughout  a  group, 
or  transmitted  from  one  group  to  another,  and  thus 
progress  also  is  brought  about  by  imitation.  A  large 
body  of  facts  of  social  behavior  was  thus  subsumed 
under  a  single  general  law. 

The  mechanism  of  imitation  was  conceived  after  the 
analogy  of  reflex  action.  An  individual  performing  a 
certain  act  in  the  presence  of  another  was  the  stimulus 
evoking  a  like  act  in  that  other,  the  brain  being  so  con- 
stituted that  such  a  stimulus  led  inevitably,  or  at  least 
easily,  to  such  a  response.  The  imitative  mechanism 
was  possessed  by  animals  as  well  as  men.  It  was  at  this 
point — in  animal  behavior — that  the  imitation  psychol- 
ogy was  first  put  to  the  test. 

Do  animals  learn  by  imitation?  This  was  the  ques- 
tion asked.  In  his  experiments  on  the  learning  of  cats, 
dogs,  and  monkeys,  Thomdike  arranged  to  have  an 
animal  already  trained  in  a  certain  trick  perform  it  in 
the  presence  of  an  untrained  animal.  A  cat  that  had 
learned  to  get  out  of  a  cage  was  placed  in  the  cage  with 


i84  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

an  untrained  cat — or  the  two  might  be  placed  in  similar 
cages  side  by  side.  The  trained  cat  promptly  went 
through  the  proper  motions  and  got  out.  This  was  re- 
peated many  times  before  the  new  cat  was  tried  to  see 
whether  it  had  learned  the  trick,  or  would  now  learn  it 
more  quickly  than  a  cat  without  this  experience.  The 
result  was  negative;  there  was  no  evidence  of  learning 
by  imitation;  and  this  was  true  even  of  the  monkey, 
commonly  held  to  be  a  very  imitative  animal — so  held, 
perhaps,  because  its  behavior  so  much  resembles  that  of 
human  beings.  Later  experiments  by  other  investigators 
have  failed  to  modify  this  negative  conclusion  in  any  im- 
portant respect,  though  there  is  evidence  that  the  higher 
or  anthropoid  apes  occasionally  derive  benefit  from 
watching  their  fellows  perform  a  trick.  The  song  of  birds 
is  in  some  respects  an  exception.  In  general,  imitation 
appears  not  to  afford  a  means  by  which  animals  learn. 
With  children,  though  it  is  clear  that  they  pick  up  a 
great  deal  from  older  persons,  it  is  not  at  all  clear  that 
they  learn  much  by  mere  imitation.  That  is  to  say,  it 
is  not  clear  that  the  imitative  tendency  which  the  child 
certainly  shows  frees  him  at  all  from  the  necessity  of 
learning  by  trial  cind  error.  Learning  to  talk  is  a  case  in 
point.  The  elements  of  vowel  and  consonantal  produc- 
tion being  provided,  as  was  said  before,  by  native  equip- 
ment, the  selection  and  combination  of  these  instinctive 
movements  into  the  words  and  phrases  of  a  language 
being  just  as  clearly  in  some  sense  an  imitative  process, 
it  is  none  the  less  true  that  the  child's  early  attempts  at 
imitating  spoken  words  are  very  imperfect,  and  that  he 
has  to  go  through  a  long  trial  and  error  process  before 
he  speaks  as  those  around  him  speak.     He  imitates 


SOCIAL  BEHAVIOR  185 

models,  but  must  learn  to  do  it.  He  has  no  reflex 
mechanisms  insuring  correct  imitation,  but  apparently 
a  natural  tendency  to  try  to  imitate,  along  with  the 
ability  to  perceive  the  act  imitated  with  sufficient  pre- 
cision to  serve  as  a  check  on  the  correctness  of  his  at- 
tempts at  imitation. 

What  is  meant  here  by  'ability  to  perceive*  requires 
a  little  elucidation.  It  may  be  made  clear  by  reference 
to  two  somewhat  peculiar  instances  of  imitation. 

The  spectators  of  a  football  game  may  often  be  ob- 
served, by  any  one  who,  with  an  interest  in  human  be- 
havior, turns  his  attention  from  the  players  to  the 
audience,  to  execute  themselves  some  of  the  movements 
of  the  players,  especially  at  critical  moments.  When 
the  full  back  is  making  a  rather  deliberate  kick,  the  feet 
of  some  of  the  audience  may  be  observed  to  make  a  kick- 
like movement.  This  appears  like  an  especially  good 
instance  of  purely  reflex  imitation,  since  the  movement 
is  entirely  unintentional  and  to  no  purpose,  and  often 
unconscious.  A  little  further  observation,  however, 
introduces  difficulty;  since  it  may  happen,  when  the 
player's  movement  is  delayed  beyond  the  moment  when 
it  is  expected,  that  the  movement  of  the  spectator's  foot 
precedes  that  of  the  player.  In  such  a  case,  the  spec- 
tator's movement  is  clearly  not  imitative  in  the  strict 
sense,  since  the  reaction  comes  before  the  supposed 
stimulus.  Evidently  the  spectator's  movement  depends 
on  an  understanding  of  the  situation  and  a  perception  of 
the  requirement  for  a  certain  movement,  and  equally  on 
an  interest  that  the  movement  shall  be  performed,  since 
It  is  the  kick  of  a  player  on  one's  chosen  side  that  is 
thus,  as  it  were,  helped  along  by  the  spectator. 


l86  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

The  other  case  was  named  by  Baldwin  'delayed  imi- 
tation'. The  imitative  reaction  occurs,  not  directly 
after  the  movement  imitated,  but  after  an  interval  that 
may  be  one  of  hours  or  days.  The  following  is  an 
example  that  came  under  my  own  observation.  A  boy 
of  three  years,  accompanying  his  father  to  a  friend's 
house,  heard  his  father  greeted  on  entrance  by  "Hello, 
Dodger!" — a  nickname  not  previously  used  in  the  child's 
presence.  The  child  did  not  imitate  this  greeting  at  the 
time,  but  the  next  day,  when  the  father  entered  the 
house,  the  child  called  out,  "Hello,  Dodger!"  Though 
this  is,  in  a  broad  sense,  an  imitative  reaction,  it  did 
not  conform  to  the  reflex  type.  Evidently  the  child  had 
observed  with  interest  the  nickname  as  spoken  by  the 
father's  friend,  and  he  had  also  perceived  the  social 
situation — the  father  entering  a  house  and  being  greeted 
in  a  certain  way;  and  on  the  recurrence  of  a  similar 
social  situation,  the  child  makes  the  response  that  he 
had  formerly  noted  and  connected  with  the  situation, 
the  mere  motor  act  being  already  well  within  the  child's 
power.  Imitation  in  children  depends,  perhaps  always, 
on  a  perception  of  the  act  imitated,  with  some  degree  of 
understanding  and  with  previously  acquired  power  to 
execute  the  act.  That  is  to  say  that  the  child's  imita- 
tion, far  from  conforming  to  the  simple  reflex  type,  in- 
volves a  certain  intellectual  activity,  while  also  it  does 
not  free  the  child  from  the  necessity  of  learning  an  act 
new  to  him  by  a  process  of  trial  and  error.  But  what  I 
wish  especially  to  emphasize  is  the  imitation  motive. 
There  exists  in  the  child  at  a  certain  early  age,  and  in 
some  degree  later  as  well,  a  tendency  to  imitate,  a  drive, 
easily  aroused,  towards  performing  acts  like  those  per- 


SOCIAL  BEHAVIOR  187 

celved  in  other  persons,  especially  in  persons  that  possess 
for  the  child  a  degree  of  prestige.  The  imitating  child, 
or  youth  or  adult,  is  not  a  purely  passive  mechanism, 
but  contains  a  drive  towards  imitation  that  can  readily 
be  aroused  to  activity.  The  child  likes  to  imitate,  this 
liking  being  part  of  his  general  social  orientation.  The 
objection  to  the  imitation  psychology,  as  usually  taught, 
is  that  it  makes  of  imitation  a  ready-made  reflex  mech- 
anism, while  it  fails  to  recognize  the  drive  towards 
imitation,  or  the  drive  towards  social  perception  and 
behavior  generally. 

Besides  imitation  of  movements,  the  imitation  psy- 
chology recognized  also  an  imitation  of  beliefs,  feelings, 
and  purposes. 

The  imitation  of  beliefs  went  by  the  name  of  sugges- 
tion, and  the  main  element  in  the  conception  of  sugges- 
tion was  the  passivity  of  the  recipient.  He  was  sup- 
posed, in  adopting  the  beliefs  of  the  social  medium,  to 
be  very  much  in  the  condition  of  the  hypnotized  sub- 
ject, who  accepts  what  is  told  him  without  the  normal 
degree  of  resistance  or  criticism,  and  is  thus  liable  to 
induced  hallucinations  and  similar  absurdities.  The 
absence  of  normal  resistance  is,  I  think,  the  distinguish- 
ing mark  of  suggestion  in  strongly  marked  instances 
such  as  those  occurring  in  hypnosis.  Now  it  is  true 
that  beliefs  are  frequently  adopted  from  other  persons 
without  much  resistance  or  examination;  but  it  is  not 
true  that  the  recipient  is  purely  passive,  for  here  again, 
I  believe,  we  can  detect  the  presence  of  a  social  motive. 
We  like  to  agree  with  the  views  expressed  by  another 
person,  and  especially  by  a  group  of  persons.  There  is 
a  sense  of  comfort  and  satisfaction  in  thus  agreeing, 


l88  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

while  independence  or  opposition,  to  which  also  there 
is  a  natural  tendency,  is  a  more  strenuous  attitude.  Let 
two  persons,  just  made  acquainted,  be  attracted  towards 
each  other  and  begin  to  be  friends:  what  we  find  them 
doing  is  to  exchange  views ;  and  if  they  find  themselves 
in  agreement,  they  experience  a  satisfaction  that  is  quite 
exhilarating.  People  with  the  same  view  gravitate 
together,  and  a  group  of  like-thinking  persons  is  emi- 
nently satisfactory  to  its  members  until  they  become 
negatively  adapted  to  one  another.  There  is,  then,  an 
easily  aroused  drive  towards  accepting  beliefs  held  by 
one's  associates,  and  the  process  is  by  no  means  so 
passive  as  it  has  often  been  represented. 

The  same  criticism  can  be  passed  on  the  current  con- 
ception of  sympathetic  induction  of  the  emotions,  as 
presented  especially  by  McDougall.  The  expression  of 
emotion  by  one  person  is  supposed  to  act  as  a  stimulus 
on  another  person,  arousing  the  like  emotion  in  him; 
and  this  second  person  has  been  conceived  as  purely 
receptive  or  passive  in  the  process.  The  examples  cited 
are  such  as  these :  when  one  child  cries,  another,  hear- 
ing the  cry,  begins  to  cry  himself;  when  we  hear  or  see 
some  one  laughing,  we  feel  like  laughing  ourselves;  and 
anger  and  fear  are  similarly  contagious.  These  exam- 
ples, when  closely  scrutinized,  appear  somewhat  doubt- 
ful evidence,  and  certainly  require  further  investigation 
before  they  can  be  accepted  at  their  face  value.  It  often 
happens  that  two  children  become  tired  or  hungry  at 
about  the  same  time,  and  begin  to  cry  together  because 
affected  alike  by  these  stimuli  to  weeping  rather  than  by 
induction  from  one  to  the  other.  Or  it  may  happen 
that  when  one  child  is  punished  and  cries,  the  other, 


SOCIAL  BEHAVIOR  189 

knowing  from  experience  that  his  turn  is  coming,  reacts 
to  this  anticipation.  In  many  cases,  a  child  is  in  no  way 
moved  to  weeping  by  the  presence  of  another  child  cry- 
ing, but  rather  to  interested  observation  or  even  to  joy. 
Where  there  seems,  at  first  sight,  to  be  a  sympathetic 
induction  of  woe,  there  is  a  good  chance,  as  illustrated 
above,  either  that  a  common  cause  is  acting  upon  the 
two  individuals,  or  that  the  second  individual  to  be 
affected  is  reached,  not  by  the  direct  sensory  stimulus 
of  the  other's  expression,  but  by  way  of  associations 
formed  in  previous  experience.  The  same  possibilities, 
or  very  similar  ones,  have  to  be  reckoned  with  in  the 
cases  of  induced  laughter,  anger,  or  fear. 

It  is,  then,  open  to  considerable  doubt  whether  ready- 
made  mechanisms  exist  in  our  native  equipment  which 
are  directly  aroused  by  the  sight  of  emotion  so  as  to  pro- 
duce the  same  emotion  in  the  beholder.  But  what  is 
certainly  true,  here  as  in  the  analogous  cases  of  imitation 
and  suggestion,  is  that  we  have  a  liking  to  have  others 
feel  as  we  do  and  to  feel  as  others  do.  This  is  distinctly 
'more  sociable'  than  for  one  of  two  companions  to  be 
merry  while  the  other  is  sad,  or  for  one  to  be  vexed  at 
something  which  leaves  the  other  unmoved.  Com- 
panionship is  more  companionable,  more  successful, 
when  emotions  are  'shared'.  The  desire  for  companion- 
ship involves  a  desire  for  sympathy  and  a  desire  to  be 
sympathetic.  In  other  words,  the  individual  in  whom 
an  emotion  is  induced  is  not  a  mere  passive  mechanism, 
but  contains  within  himself  a  drive  towards  sympathetic 
emotion ;  and  it  is  often  by  way  of  this  drive,  rather  than 
by  a  direct  and  mechanical  induction,  that  the  emotional 
state  comes  to  be  shared  by  a  group  of  companions. 


190  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

Quite  in  line  with  induction  of  actions  (imitation), 
of  beliefs  (suggestion),  and  of  emotions  (sympathy),  is 
induction  of  purposes,  often  referred  to  under  the  cap- 
tion of  'mob  mind'.  The  imitation  psychologists 
pointed  out  that  an  individual  was  often  infected  by  a 
crowd  of  which  he  was  a  member  with  purposes  repug- 
nant to  his  individual  habits  and  predilections.  This,  it 
was  explained,  was  due  to  the  overpowering  force  of  a 
mass  of  men.  The  individual  became  a  mere  passive 
mechanism  played  upon  by  the  crowd.  Same  criticism 
as  above :  the  individual  is  not  passive,  for  a  drive  within 
him  is  aroused.  He  likes  to  have  the  same  purpose  as  his 
fellows  in  the  group.  Far  from  being  bereft  of  purpose 
and  converted  into  a  passive  machine,  he  is  intensely 
purposeful  at  such  times.  Besides  the  primitive  drives 
of  fear  and  anger  that  are  sometimes  aroused,  definite 
objects  to  be  attained  are  often  present  in  the  'mob 
mind',  such  as :  to  put  out  a  fire,  to  move  a  heavy  object, 
to  capture  a  runaway  cow  or  induce  a  balky  horse  to 
start,  to  raise  an  anchor,  sail  a  schooner,  or  to  do  a 
thousand  things  where  a  crew  or  gang  work  together. 
To  be  sure,  it  is  stretching  the  use  of  words  to  call  all 
these  aggregations  of  men  'mobs' ;  but  it  is  still  more  out 
of  place  to  use  the  mob,  properly  so  called,  as  the  best 
type  of  all  group  activity.  The  panic-stricken  mob,  in 
particular,  is  a  poorly  chosen  case  for  the  type,  since  in 
a  panic  it  is  'every  man  for  himself,  and  group  activity 
is  abolished.  Overwhelming  anger  also  is  likely  to  cause 
group  action  to  degenerate  into  a  'free  for  all  fight',  in 
which  each  individual  is  engaged  with  some  individual 
opponent.  In  the  same  way,  while  sex  attraction  cer- 
tainly furnishes  part  of  the  motive  for  various  social 


SOCIAL  BEHAVIOR  191 

activities,  intensification  of  the  sex  motive  causes  the 
group  to  break  up  into  couples.  Group  activity,  in 
short,  is  best  realized  when  none  of  these  elemental 
drives  is  all-dominant.  But  the  main  point  is  that 
group  activity  has  an  attraction  of  its  own,  so  that  it  is 
a  satisfaction  to  the  individual  to  engage  in  it.  To  act 
with  others  toward  a  common  end  is  not,  human  nature 
being  what  it  is,  to  be  a  mere  wheel  playing  a  passive 
part  in  the  operation,  but  involves  the  awakening  of  a 
drive  towards  the  common  goal  and  of  an  interest  in 
joint  action. 

The  great  deficiency  of  the  imitation  school  of  social 
psychology  is  thus  that  it  pictures  the  individual  as 
passive  over  against  his  fellows  or  his  group,  and  fails 
to  recognize  his  liking  for  agreement  with  his  fellows  in 
belief,  emotion,  purpose,  and  action.  It  fails  to  observe 
in  the  individual  a  drive  towards  sociability,  though 
this  tendency  is  certainly  evident  enough  when  we  direct 
our  attention  away  from  tribes  and  nations  to  com- 
panionships and  small  friendly  groups.  To  this  point 
we  shall  return,  after  first  taking  note  of  the  very- 
significant  effort  of  McDougall  to  develop  a  social  psy- 
chology on  a  more  adequate  psychological  basis. 

McDougall  begins  ^  by  making  an  inventory,  already 
quoted  under  our  heading  of  'native  equipment',  of  the 
instinctive  tendencies  of  man,  from  which  are  derived 
in  the  course  of  experience  all  the  motives  that  produce 
human  activity. 

He  then  proceeds  to  trace  the  effect  of  experience  in 
compounding  these  innate  tendencies  and  attaching 
them  to  specific  objects;  and  finally  endeavors  to  show 

1  Introduction  to  Social  Psychology. 


192  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

how  social  behavior  springs  from  these  native  ten- 
dencies and  their  compounds.  He  makes  a  good  deal 
here  of  the  parental  instinct  and  of  the  instinct  of  pug- 
nacity, but  stresses  especially  the  instincts  of  self-asser- 
tion and  submission,  from  which,  indeed,  he  attempts  to 
trace  almost  the  whole  development  of  moral  conduct. 
In  his  first  and  wholly  untutored  condition,  the  indi- 
vidual simply  obeys  his  instincts.  The  first  modification 
of  this  instinctive  behavior  arises  from  the  pleasant  or 
painful  results  of  instinctive  action;  but  behavior  so 
modified  has  as  yet  no  social  character.  This  begins  to 
appear  from  the  effects  of  reward  and  punishment  ad- 
ministered by  other  persons,  leading  the  individual  to 
modify  his  conduct  so  as  to  get  the  one  and  avoid  the 
other.  A  higher  stage  of  social  behavior  is  reached  when 
the  individual  is  sensitive  to  the  praise  or  blame  of  other 
people.  To  be  appreciative  of  praise  or  blame  implies  a 
submissive  attitude  in  the  individual.  It  is  the  praise 
and  blame  of  his  superiors,  or  of  the  social  group,  that 
influences  him.  Meanwhile,  his  self-assertive  tendency 
is  by  no  means  dormant,  but,  as  he  grows  up,  he  shakes 
off  the  domination  of  those  who  were  at  first  his 
superiors,  and  finds  new  superiors  in  the  wider  world. 
Nearly  always,  the  social  group  retains  its  ascendency 
over  him,  though  some  individuals,  of  strong  self-asser- 
tive (self-respecting)  tendencies,  after  experience  of  the 
divergent  codes  of  conduct  prevalent  in  different  groups, 
develop  codes  of  their  own,  and  act  according  to  them 
even  in  opposition  to  the  praise  or  blame  of  their  social 
environment.  This  self-governed  conduct,  according 
to  McDougall,  is  the  highest  and  only  true  type  of 
morality. 


SOCIAL  BEHAVIOR  193 

McDougairs  work  represents  a  very  definite  advance 
in  social  psychology,  and  the  general  conclusion  that 
behavior  depends  on  native  tendencies,  which,  how- 
ever, become  combined  so  that  mixed  motives  are  the 
rule  in  adult  action,  is  almost  sure  to  stand.  But 
McDougall  has  so  far  given  us  only  a  sketch,  and  it 
would  be  a  serious  mistake  to  accept  it  as  a  complete 
picture,  or  to  let  its  omissions  go  unchallenged. 

One  thing  that  strikes  you  in  reading  McDougall's 
book  is  the  little  reference  made  to  comradeship  and 
other  relationships  between  equals,  as  compared  with 
his  constant  use  of  the  instincts  of  domination  and  sub- 
mission. He  speaks,  indeed,  of  sympathy  between 
equals  and  its  role  in  the  development  of  friendship  and 
mutual  consideration;  but  he  apparently  sees  little  in 
the  activity  of  a  group  of  persons  who  are  approximately 
on  an  equality  with  one  another  to  give  rise  to  morality, 
justice,  and  rules  of  conduct.  The  following  interesting 
passage  is  quoted  in  order  to  show  the  author  at  his 
best,  and  at  the  same  time  to  reveal  his  limitations. 

'All  persons  fall  for  the  child  into  one  or  other  of  two 
great  classes ;  in  the  one  class  are  those  who  impress  him 
as  beings  of  superior  power,  who  evoke  his  negative 
self-feeling,  and  towards  whom  he  is  submissive  and 
receptive;  in  the  other  class  are  those  whose  presence 
evokes  his  positive  self-feeling  and  towards  whom  he  is 
self-assertive  and  masterful,  just  because  they  fail  to 
impress  him  as  beings  superior  to  himself.  As  his  powers 
develop  and  his  knowledge  increases,  persons  who  at 
first  belonged  to  the  former  class  are  transferred  to  the 
latter;  he  learns,  or  thinks  he  learns,  the  limits  of  their 
powers;  he  no  longer  shrinks  from  a  contest  with  them, 


194  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

and,  every  time  he  gains  the  advantage  in  any  such  con- 
test, their  power  of  evoking  his  negative  self-feeHng 
diminishes,  until  it  fails  completely.  When  that  stage 
is  reached  his  attitude  towards  them  is  reversed,  it 
becomes  self-assertive;  for  their  presence  evokes  his 
positive  self -feeling.  In  this  way  a  child  of  good  capa- 
cities, in  whom  the  instinct  of  self-assertion  is  strong, 
works  his  way  up  the  social  ladder.  Each  of  the  wider 
social  circles  that  he  successively  enters — the  circle  of 
his  playmates,  of  his  school-fellows,  of  his  college,  of  his 
profession — impresses  him  at  first  with  a  sense  of  a 
superior  power,  not  only  because  each  circle  comprises 
individuals  older  than  himself  and  of  greater  reputation, 
but  also  because  each  is  in  some  degree  an  organized 
whole  that  disposes  of  a  collective  power  whose  nature 
and  limits  are  at  first  unknown  to  the  newly-admitted 
member.  But  within  each  such  circle  he  rapidly  finds 
his  level,  finds  out  those  to  whom  he  must  submit  and 
those  towards  whom  he  may  be  self-assertive.  .  . 
When  he  enters  college,  the  process  begins  again;  the 
fourth-year  men,  with  their  caps  and  their  colors  and 
academic  distinctions,  are  now  his  gods,  and  even  the 
dons  may  dominate  his  imagination.  But  at  the  end  of 
his  fourth  year,  after  a  successful  career  in  the  schools 
and  the  playing  fields,  how  changed  again  is  his  attitude 
towards  his  college  society!  The  dons  he  regards  with 
kindly  tolerance,  the  freshmen  with  hardly  disguised  dis- 
dain, and  very  few  remain  capable  of  evoking  his  nega- 
tive self-feeling — perhaps  a  'blue',  or  a  'rugger-inter- 
national', or  a  don  of  world-wide  reputation;  for  the 
rest — he  has  comprehended  them,  grasped  their  limits, 
labelled  them,and  dismissed  them  to  the  class  that  min- 


SOCIAL  BEHAVIOR  195 

isters  to  his  positive  self-feeling.  And  so  he  goes  out 
into  the  great  world  to  repeat  the  process  and  to  carry- 
it  as  far  as  his  capacities  will  enable  him  to  do. 

'But  if  once  authority,  wielding  punishment  and  re- 
ward, has  awakened  negative  self- feeling  and  caused  its 
incorporation  in  the  self-regarding  sentiment,  that  emo- 
tion may  be  readily  evoked;  and  there  is  always  one 
power  that  looms  up  vaguely  and  largely  behind  all 
individuals — the  power  of  society  as  a  whole — which, 
by  reason  of  its  indefinable  vastness,  is  better  suited 
than  all  others  to  evoke  this  emotion  and  this  attitude. 
The  child  comes  gradually  to  understand  his  position  as 
a  member  of  a  society  indefinitely  larger  and  more 
powerful  than  any  circle  of  his  acquaintances,  a  society 
which  with  a  collective  voice  and  irresistible  power  dis- 
tributes rewards  and  punishments,  praise  and  blame, 
and  formulates  its  approval  and  disapproval  in  univer- 
sally accepted  maxims.  This  collective  voice  appeals  to 
the  self-regarding  sentiment,  humbles  or  elates  us,  calls 
out  our  shame  or  self-satisfaction,  with  even  greater 
effect  than  the  personal  authorities  of  early  childhood, 
and  gradually  supplants  them  more  and  more.'  ^ 

Now  while  all  this  is  true  and  highly  pertinent,  it 
gives  a  very  incomplete  account  of  the  social  attitude  of 
the  boy  or  man  towards  his  fellows.  If  the  instincts  of 
self-assertion  and  submission  were  the  only  ones  operat- 
ive, we  should  expect  to  see  the  boy  attempt  to  attach 
himself  to  a  group  of  older  boys,  in  order  to  gratify  his 
submissive  tendency,  or  to  a  group  of  younger  boys  in 
order  to  give  free  play  to  his  self-assertion.  Now  we  do, 
to  some  extent,  observe  the  boy  seeking  the  company 

1  Social  Psychology,  8th  ed.,  191 4,  pp.  194-196. 


196  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

of  older  boys  and  taking  a  submissive  attitude  towards 
them — a  fact  which  is  good  evidence  of  the  reahty  of 
the  submissive  tendency.  But  as  a  rule  boys  seek  the 
company  of  boys  of  about  the  same  age  and  prowess. 
They  apparently  derive  most  satisfaction  from  playing 
together  as  equals.  Again,  the  social  attitude  of  the 
college  senior  is  far  from  completely  expressed  by  saying 
that  he  has  'dismissed'  most  members  of  the  college 
world  *to  the  class  that  ministers  to  his  positive  self- 
feeling'  ;  for  this  leaves  out  of  account  the  fellowship  of 
the  seniors  among  themselves.  It  is  interesting  to 
watch  a  class  of  alumni  at  a  reunion  at  the  college  after 
five  or  ten  years  in  the  world ;  so  far  from  seeking,  each 
man  to  find  his  new  level  on  the  basis  of  accomplish- 
ment since  graduation,  their  aim  is  to  leave  aside  all 
such  distinctions  and  get  back  to  their  old  condition  of 
equality.  Within  a  profession,  there  is  no  doubt  plenty 
of  emulation,  but  at  the  same  time  there  develops  a  class 
spirit,  or  sense  of  community  of  aim  and  outlook,  that 
gives  solidarity  to  the  profession  as  against  other  groups. 
McDougall  does  not  entirely  overlook  these  facts,  but 
he  apparently  finds  little  in  them  to  his  purpose. 
Society  appears  in  his  pages  as  an  authority,  impressing 
the  individual  with  its  vastness,  and  awakening  in  him 
a  submissive  attitude.  It  does  not  appear  as  anything 
interesting  and  attractive  to  the  individual,  except  in- 
deed, in  so  far  as  the  mere  multitude  attracts  by  virtue 
of  the  gregarious  instinct.  The  latter  is  conceived 
simply  as  an  imipulse  to  herd  together,  and  as  satisfied 
by  the  mere  presence  of  a  multitude  of  other  persons. 
Probably  this  is  a  proper  limitation  on  the  use  of  the 
term,  'gregarious  instinct',  but  it  is  not  by  any  means 


SOCIAL  BEHAVIOR  197 

true  that  the  social  impulse  is  thus  limited.  There  is  an 
impulse  to  act  together,  as  well  as  to  be  together.  Let 
a  number  of  children  be  brought  together;  their  demands 
are  not  fully  met  by  simply  being  together,  but  they 
want  to  do  something;  nor  are  they  satisfied  by  each 
doing  something  on  his  own  account  in  the  mere  pres- 
ence of  other  children.  Their  demand  is  to  play  to- 
gether, to  engage  in  some  sort  of  group  activity.  The 
group  activity  in  which  they  engage  has  no  ulterior 
motive — such  as  the  fear  motive  or  the  economic  mo- 
tive— but  it  is  interesting  to  the  participants  for  its 
own  sake.  This  behavior  of  children  is  typical  of  society 
in  general.  Society,  we  should  not  forget,  is  essentially 
activity  or  behavior;  it  is  an  activity  rather  than  a  con- 
dition. And  the  social  motive  is  the  tendency  to  engage 
in  group  activity,  which  is  interesting  and  satisfying  to 
beings  of  a  social  nature. 

As  typical  an  instance  of  social  behavior  as  can  be 
found  is  that  of  the  game,  whether  of  children^  or  of 
adults.  The  game  needs  no  ulterior  motive,  being  in- 
teresting on  its  own  account.  Though  play  may  be 
carried  on  by  a  solitary  individual,  group  play  is  much 
preferred,  probably  because  the  activities  possible  in 
group  activity  are  more  varied  and  complex,  and  so  offer 
more  of  interest,  while  the  interplay  of  different  per- 
sonalities in  a  group  game  adds  an  element  of  particular 
interest  to  the  participants.  Except  in  the  simplest 
games,  there  is  some  'division  of  labor'  among  the  play- 
ers, their  actions  being  coordinated  towards  some  com- 
mon end.  Where  the  game  is  between  opposing  teams, 
the  elements  of  rivalry  and  of  loyalty  to  one's  side  add 
interest;  and  in  proportion  as  'team  work'  is  realized, 


198  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

the  interest  is  enhanced.  Thus  a  card  game  with  part- 
ners is  usually  preferred  to  one  in  which  every  player  is 
for  himself.  Ceremonies  are  close  analogies  of  games, 
and  the  meaning  which  is  supposed  to  underlie  the 
ceremony  but  adds  another  element  of  interest,  without 
detracting  from  the  fact  that  the  main  interest  is  in 
the  ceremony  itself  as  a  group  activity.  Where  a  given 
ceremony  is  common  to  several  tribes,  it  often  happens 
that  the  meaning  attributed  to  it  differs  from  one  tribe 
to  another — the  real  interest  lies  in  the  ceremony  itself 
as  a  social  activity,  the  'underlying'  conceptions  being 
of  less,  though  undoubtedly  of  some  value.  Even  of  the 
'practical'  activities  of  groups  of  men  much  the  same 
can  be  said,  since,  while  an  economic  or  other  motive  may 
be  essential  to  get  the  activity  started,  this  is  lost  sight 
of  in  the  actual  performance,  and  the  interest  that  then 
dominates  is  that  of  group  activity,  much  as  in  a  game. 
One  characteristic  of  a  game  is  that  the  players  are 
in  certain  important  respects  on  terms  of  equality. 
This  does  not  mean  that  different  abilities  to  play  the 
game  do  not  have  much  to  do  with  the  playing,  nor 
that,  in  the  division  of  labor  among  the  players,  some 
may  not  be  captains  or  otherwise  assigned  a  dominating 
part.  But  it  means  that  inequalities  extraneous  to  the 
game  are  not  allowed  to  enter.  The  older  or  stronger 
child  must  not  'play  out  of  turn',  but  every  one  must 
have  an  equal  chance  to  do  as  well  as  he  can.  Not  in- 
frequently, a  child  will  undertake  to  assert  himself  and 
have  everything  his  own  way;  but  he  is  resisted  by  the 
others,  on  the  ground  that  such  behavior  spoils  the 
game  and  is  'no  fair'.  'Rules  of  the  game'  grow  up,  with 
the  object,  in  part,  of  enforcing  equality  between  the 


SOCIAL  BEHAVIOR  199 

players,  and,  more  generally,  with  the  object  of  insuring 
a  good  game. 

These  'rules  of  the  game*  deserve  attention  in  connec- 
tion with  the  problem  of  morality.  McDougall  has 
sketched  for  us  the  development  .of  moral  conduct 
through  the  interplay  of  the  self-assertive  and  submis- 
sive instincts,  and  makes  the  development  culminate 
in  the  self-contained  individual  who  is  no  longer  sub- 
missive to  the  praise  or  blame  of  his  social  environment, 
because  he  has  adopted  a  code  for  himself  which  he 
regards  as  superior  to  any  that  the  group  would  enforce 
upon  him.  Such  a  character,  though  admirable  in  its 
integration,  may  be  repellent  in  other  respects,  and  the 
content  of  the  code  of  morals  needs  to  be  examined  be- 
fore the  individual  can  be  allowed  to  stand  at  the  pin- 
nacle of  moral  excellence.  McDougall  says  nothing  of 
fair  play  or  of  justice,  because  these  concepts  have  no 
place  except  between  equals,  or  between  those  who  are 
to  be  treated  as  equals  in  certain  respects.  It  is  not  by 
domination  and  submission  that  justice  is  brought  to 
light,  but  by  resistance  to  domination  and  by  the  de- 
mand for  equality.  Fair  play  in  a  game  is  a  type  of  just 
dealing  in  larger  affairs.  As  children  in  their  games 
resist  the  domineering  individual  and  achieve  fair  play, 
so  the  history  of  larger  affairs  shows,  I  believe,  that 
justice  has  been  hammered  out  by  resistance  to  dom- 
ination, and  by  threatening  to  break  up  the  game  unless 
certain  rules  are  followed.  If  so,  it  is  the  relationship 
of  equals,  rather  than  that  of  superior  and  inferior,  that 
has  given  content  to  the  social  code  of  conduct. 

The  main  criticism  to  be  passed  upon  McDougall  is 
that  he  fails  to  recognize  a  definitely  social  motive.     He 


200  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

recognizes  several  motives  that  contribute  to  social  life 
by  making  one  individual  interested  in  other  individ- 
uals, but  he  recognizes  none  that  would  make  group 
activity  interesting.  Society  appears  in  his  pages  as  an 
authority  controlling  the  individual,  but  not  as  an 
activity  attractive  to  the  individual.  Possibly  his  fail- 
ure to  notice  the  rather  obvious  fact  that  group  action, 
either  in  a  small  or  in  a  large  way,  is  positively  interest- 
ing and  attractive,  results  from  his  general  conviction 
that  all  human  motives  grow  out  of  the  list  of  instincts 
which  he  has  given.  An  instinct  he  defines  as  having  a 
definite  stimulus  and  a  definite  reaction,  and  also  a 
definite  emotional  state;  and  where  he  cannot  find 
these  three,  he  is  undisposed  to  admit  the  presence  of  a 
native  tendency  capable  of  furnishing  the  driving  force 
to  action.  What  he  here  overlooks  is  the  fact  of  native 
capacities,  or  rather,  the  fact  that  each  native  capac- 
ity is  at  the  same  time  a  drive  towards  the  sort  of 
activity  in  question.  The  native  capacity  for  mathe- 
matics is,  at  the  same  time,  an  interest  in  things  math- 
ematical, and  in  dealing  with  such  things.  This  is 
clearly  true  in  individuals  gifted  with  a  great  capacity 
for  mathematics.  Gauss,  so  immersed  in  his  original 
mathematical  work  that  his  attention  could  not  be  got 
away  by  hunger,  or  bodily  fatigue,  or  the  solicitations 
of  his  friends,  was  certainly  not  driven  at  such  times  by 
an  economic  motive,  or  a  sex  motive,  or  a  self-regarding 
tendency;  but  by  nothing  else  in  the  world  than  his 
interest  in  what  he  was  doing.  The  musical  composer, 
though  sometimes  needing  the  spur  of  economic  need 
to  get  him  started,  is  carried  along,  once  he  gets  into 
the  swing  of  the  thing,  by  the  musical  interest,  and  not 


SOCIAL  BEHAVIOR  f  ^ 

\  tv^.'l 
by  the  economic;  and  the  same  is  true  of  any  creati^ 

artist.  Taussig,  in  his  valuable  study  of  Inventors  anj^  / 
Money-Makers,  makes  it  clear  that  inventing  is  an 
activity  often  engaged  in  for  its  own  sake  and  without 
regard  to  the  possible  rewards.  Veblen,  in  his  Instinct 
of  Workmanship,  takes  the  same  view  in  regard  to  handi- 
work or,  in  general,  to  the  successful  adaptation  of 
means  to  ends.  The  fundamental  drive  toward  a  cer- 
tain end  may  be  hunger,  pugnacity,  sex,  or  what  not, 
but  once  the  activity  is  started,  the  means  to  the  end 
becomes  an  object  of  interest  on  its  own  account. 
Workmanship  is  ''an  object  of  attention  and  sentiment 
in  its  own  right.  Efficient  use  of  the  means  at  hand, 
and  adequate  management  of  the  resources  available 
for  the  purposes  of  life  is  itself  an  end  of  endeavor,  and 
accomplishment  of  this  kind  is  a  source  of  gratification."  ^ 
The  fact  that  interest  develops  not  only  in  the  ulterior 
end,  but  in  the  means  to  that  end,  can  be  seen  in  so 
simple  a  matter  as  the  moving  of  a  heavy  stone.  There 
is,  of  course,  some  motive  of  a  practical  sort  motiving 
the  attempt  to  move  the  stone;  but  once  the  job  has 
been  undertaken,  it  becomes  a  sort  of  game  or  con- 
test with  the  stone,  and  decidedly  interesting  to  the 
performers,  both  in  the  process  and  in  the  successful 
issue — without  regard  to  the  ulterior  object  of  the  whole 
activity.  Such  activities  as  sailing  a  boat,  driving  a 
horse  or  automobile,  chopping  down  a  tree,  are  simp- 
ly striking  cases  of  what  is  generally  true,  namely, 
that  any  activity,  whether  'gainful'  or  not,  provided 
only  it  is  not  positively  disagreeable,  may  be  entered 
upon  as  a  sport  or  amusement,  furnishing,  that  is  to 

1  Veblen,  pp.  31-32. 


:?p2  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 


isay,  Its  own  drive.  To  sum  up — almost  any  object, 
aimost  any  act,  and  particularly  almost  any  process  or 
change  in  objects  that  can  be  directed  by  one's  own 
activity  towards  some  definite  end,  is  interesting  on  its 
own  account,  and  furnishes  its  own  drive,  once  it  is 
fairly  initiated.  To  be  interesting,  the  process  must 
present  some  difficulty  and  yet  some  prospect  of  a  suc- 
cessful issue.  It  would  be  a  mistake  to  trace  all  this 
back  to  a  special  instinct  of  manipulation,  though  un- 
doubtedly the  manipulative  tendencies  of  young  chil- 
dren are  the  first  manifestation  of  this  general  type  of 
interest,  unless,  indeed,  it  be  the  attention  directed  by 
them  to  various  objects.  The  truth  is,  that,  having 
native  capacity  for  performing  certain  acts  and  dealing 
with  certain  classes  of  material,  we  are  interested  in  per- 
forming these  acts  and  handling  this  material;  and 
that,  once  these  activities  are  aroused,  they  furnish 
their  own  drive.  This  applies  to  abilities  developed 
through  training  as  well  as  to  strictly  native  capacities. 
Almost  anything  may  be  made  play  and  furnish  its  own 
motive. 

The  social  motive — and  this  is  the  main  contention 
in  this  whole  discussion — is  inherent  in  social  activity. 
Possessing,  as  he  eminently  does,  the  capacity  for  group 
activity,  man  is  interested  in  such  activity.  He  needs 
no  ulterior  motive  to  attract  him  to  it.  It  is  play  for 
him.  His  interest  in  it  comes  partly  from  the  interplay 
of  personality  (which  he  has  a  native  capacity  to  appre- 
hend), partly  from  the  coordination  of  the  acts  of  sev- 
eral performers  into  one  harmonious  and  well-directed 
action,  partly  from  the  spirit  of  rivalry  that  may  be  en- 
gendered between  groups,  and  not  least  from  the  big 


SOCIAL  BEHAVIOR  203 

enterprises  that  can  be  carried  through  by  joint  action. 
In  short,  the  social  interest  is  part  and  parcel  of  the 
general  objective  interest  of  man. 

The  social  motive  is  of  the  same  order  as  the  musical 
or  the  mathematical  motive.  Just  as  one  who  has  the 
musical  gift  takes  to  music  naturally  and  finds  it  inter- 
esting for  its  own  sake,  so  the  socially  gifted  individual 
understands  other  people,  sees  the  possibilities  of  col- 
lective activity,  and  the  ways  of  coordinating  it,  and 
enters  into  such  doings  with  gusto.  It  would  be  ill- 
advised  to  speak  of  a  social  instinct  underlying  this  be- 
havior; for  the  fact  is  not  that  nature  provides  a  set 
of  special  ready-made  movements  to  be  called  out  by 
the  presence  of  other  persons.  The  social  gift  is  a 
capacity  for  learning  social  behavior.  Individuals  differ 
in  degree  in  the  social  gift,  as  in  other  capacities ;  some 
are  capable  of  becoming  creative  artists  or  inventors 
along  social  lines ;  most  men  are  followers  here  as  else- 
where, yet  have  enough  capacity  to  participate  in  group 
activities. 

The  first  sign  of  the  social  motive  in  the  infant  is  his 
attention  to  other  persons.  The  six-months  baby  gazes 
at  faces  in  preference  to  any  other  object.  Very  early, 
too,  he  responds  by  vocal  and  other  movements  to  the 
actions  of  other  persons.  A  little  later  he  reaches  the 
so-called  imitative  stage,  already  discussed,  of  which 
the  chief  features  are  his  growing  ability  to  perceive  and 
appreciate  the  actions  of  other  persons  and  the  results 
which  they  accomplish,  and  his  tendency  to  attempt  to 
make  the  same  acts  and  reach  the  same  results.  The 
child  is  docile ;  he  likes  to  be  told  and  to  be  shown ;  and 
thus  his  curiosity  about  objects  is  mixed  up  with  the 


204  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

social  motive.  He  is  attracted  to  other  persons  in  part 
because  they  satisfy  his  curiosity  regarding  a  great 
variety  of  matters.  If,  as  he  grows  older,  his  curiosity 
takes  a  scientific  turn,  it  still  remains  bound  up  with  the 
social  motive.  A  science  is  distinctly  a  cooperative  en- 
terprise, while  at  the  same  time  it  is  one  in  which  there  is 
much  emulation.  It  is  much  more  satisfactory  to  the 
scientific  worker  to  be  in  touch  with  his  fellow-workers, 
to  report  his  discoveries  to  them,  and  learn  theirs  in  turn, 
than  to  labor  in  isolation.  Thus,  the  scientific  interest 
is  reinforced  by  the  social  motive.  Other  interests  are 
similarly  reinforced — the  esthetic  interest,  for  example. 
Without  doubt  there  is  an  interest  in  beautiful  things 
without  regard  to  the  social  factor;  but  it  is  equally  true 
that  an  art,  like  a  science,  is  a  social  enterprise,  as  we 
see  from  the  fact  that  creators  of  art  come  in  schools  and 
movements  rather  than  sporadically.  The  apprentice 
attaches  himself  to  a  school,  learns  its  ideas  and  tech- 
nique, which,  if  himself  a  man  of  originality,  he  may 
then  develop,  and  is  likely  to  remain  through  life  a  de- 
voted adherent,  and  keenly  interested  in  the  accomplish- 
ment and  advance  of  the  school. 

Many  drives  combine  to  produce  social  activity.  The 
fear  motive  drives  men  together  in  times  of  insecurity; 
the  pugnacity  motive  bands  them  together  for  group 
combat;  the  economic  motive  brings  industrial  co- 
operation and  organization ;  the  self-assertive  and  sub- 
missive tendencies  bring  emulation  as  well  as  obedi- 
ence; the  expansion  of  the  self  to  cover  one's  family, 
one's  clique,  one's  class,  one's  country  contributes  to 
loyalty;  while  the  parental  instinct,  expanding  its 
scope  to  cover  others  besides  children  who  are  helpless, 


SOCIAL  BEHAVIOR  205 

leads  to  self-sacrifice  and  altruism.  But  besides  all 
these  there  is  the  social  motive  proper,  the  tendency 
toward  group  activity,  which  is  not  only  found  by  ex- 
perience to  be  beneficial,  but,  what  is  more  important 
psychologically,  is  interesting  in  itself  to  creatures  that 
have  a  native  capacity  for  that  sort  of  action. 

Recognition  of  the  social  motive  affords  a  more  ade- 
quate basis  for  social  ethics  than  can  be  found  in  a 
psychology  that  attempts  to  derive  group  behavior  from 
the  self-seeking  tendencies  or  even  from  the  altruistic 
parental  tendency.  An  ethics  based  on  the  self-seeking 
tendencies  finds  no  better  ideal  than  the  superman, 
superior  and  unsubmissive  to  society.  McDougall's 
ideal  man  is  of  this  type — a  self-contained  individual 
with  a  self-selected  moral  code,  regarding  the  content 
of  which  nothing  definite  is  said  or  can  be  said.  The 
altruistic  tendency,  though  yielding  conduct  of  admir- 
able quality,  is  inadequate  because,  at  its  furthest 
reach,  it  would  simply  make  other  individuals  as  per- 
fectly self-contained  as  the  self-seeking  tendencies 
would  make  oneself.  Altruism  is  only  incidentally 
social;  it  is  concerned  with  'my  neighbor'  as  an  indi- 
vidual, but  not  with  group  behavior.  The  socially 
estimable  individual  is  rather  one  of  social  disposition 
and  of  public  spirit  than  one  notable  for  his  altruistic 
and  charitable  impulses.  Sociability  has  probably  not 
received  enough  recognition  as  a  virtue  at  the  hands  of 
ethics;  and  this  from  failure  to  observe  a  psychological 
basis  for  it.  But  once  grant  that  group  activity  is 
interesting  for  its  own  sake,  and  we  find  a  genuine 
social  basis  for  ethics — the  same  basis,  in  fact,  that  we 
find  for  the  rules  of  a  game.    Interest  in  the  game  im- 


2o6  DYNAMIC  PSYCHOLOGY 

plies  interest  in  well-coordinated  and  successful  group 
action,  and  the  rules  of  the  game  aim  at  that  result. 
The  rules  of  the  game  are  not  for  the  benefit  of  indi- 
viduals, but  for  the  success  of  the  game  as  a  group 
activity.  Fair  play  and  justice  have  the  same  basis; 
they  are  not  primarily  for  the  advantage  of  individuals, 
but  for  the  purpose  of  insuring  harmonious  group  ac- 
tivity. 

Thus  the  old  puzzle  whether  society  exists  for  the 
good  of  the  individual,  or  the  individual  for  the  good  of 
society,  is  seen  not  to  be  a  fair  dilemma.  If  society  is 
essentially  group  activity,  the  organization  of  society 
has  as  its  object  the  furtherance  of  group  activity.  The 
value  of  society  to  the  individual  is  not  a  derivative 
from  other  values,  but  arises  directly  from  his  capacity 
for  social  behavior  and  his  strong  drive  towards  social 
behavior.  The  best  formula  for  social  betterment,  while 
it  should  not  omit  such  contributions  to  purely  indi- 
vidual values  as  organization  can  compass,  and  while 
it  should  certainly  not  set  up  the  fiction  of  society  as  an 
entity  superior  to  the  individuals  composing  it,  would 
emphasize  especially  the  improvement  of  the  conditions 
of  group  activity,  with  a  view  to  making  it  more  worthy 
of  the  efforts  of  the  individual,  and  more  interesting  and 
satisfying  to  him. 


INDEX 


Abnormal  psychology,  13,  I53ff 

Abulia,  164 

Acquired  abilities,  77ff,  134 

Ach,  148 

Activity  and  rest,  50,  64 

Adaptation,  85f,  iiSf,  134,  180 

Adrenal  glands,  53f 

Altruism,  205 

Ambiguous  figures,  114,  ii8f,  135 

Analysis,  96ff 

Anger,  52ff,  65,  80,  loif,  148,  174 

Animal  magnetism,  15 

Animal  psychology,  11,  25ff,  81  f, 
84fi",  I07ff,  1 1  if,  i2of,  133,  i83f 

Applied  psychology,  i6f 

Aristotle,  2 

Art,  I72f 

Association,  8  iff,  logff;  con- 
trolled, I23f 

Assumptions,  141  f 

Attention,  49f,  69ff,  86,  88,  95, 
103,  109,  Ii3ff,  116,  ii8f,  I2iff, 
I25f,  128, 132,  i35f,  i4if,  144, 203 

Avoiding  reactions,  48f,  85f,  108 

Bagehot,  182 
Bain,  7f 
Baldwin,  182 
Beethoven,  128,  130 
Behaviorism,  33f,  42 
Bentham,  181 
Berkeley,  35 
Binet,  15 

Binocular  vision,  ii3f 
Book,  93,  144 
Braid,  16 
Bryan,  94 


Caesar,  I29ff 

Cannon,  52ff,  149 

Capacity,  native,  59ff,  69,  74fF 

Carr,  89 

Cattell,  12,  30 

Ceremonies,  198 

Charcot,  16 

Child  psychology,  11,  47fT,  58,  64, 

67ff,  -^T,  80,  92,  96,  98,  103,  133. 

168,  184,  186,  188,  I93ff,  203 
Conation,  56 
Conditioned   reflex,    82,    88,    100, 

134,  161 
Conflict,  151,  i6of,  167 
Consciousness,  2off,  35f,  42 
Control,  losff,  147 
Coordination,  47,  92f,  99,  144 
Curiosity,  49f,  65,  67flF,  74,'  103, 

109,  122,  170,  204 

Dancing,  173 

Darwin,  11,  131 

Defect,  mental,  I4f,  issfT 

Delayed  imitation,  186 

Delusions,  I57ff 

Dissociation,  84fT,  98 

Distraction,  7of,  148,  175 

Domination,  instinct  of,  51,  65, 171 

Donders,  7 

Dot  figure,  115 

Dreams,  i67f 

Drive,    36ff",   44,    58,   676",    looff, 

I20ff,  I32f,  i49flF,  157,  i6of,  164, 

i68flF,    179,    185,    i86ff,     i96f, 

i99flF,  204fT 
Dynamic  psychology,  34,  36,  43, 

152,  176 


208 


INDEX 


Ebbinghaus,  lo 
Educational  psychology,  17 
Elimination,  84!?,  loif 
Emotion,  5iff,  188 
Esthetics,  8,  ygf,  17 id,  204 
Evolution,  I  if 

Experimental  psychology,  6flF 
Exploration,    49,    87flF,    109,    113, 
121,  143 

Facilitation,  38ff,  160 

Faculties,  60 

Fatigue,  50,  119 

Fear,  48,  5iff,  56,  65,  80,  109,  164, 

180,  190 
Fechner,  yff,  31 
Feeble-mindedness,  I55ff 
Fixed  ideas.  164 
Flexibility,  I4iff,  147 
Folk  psychology,  I2f 
Food-getting,  48 
Franklin,  5,  16 
Free  association,  no 
Free  will,  152 
Freud,  16,  i66fr 

Galton,  I  if 

Gauss,  138,  200 

Geiger,  12 

Generalization,  143 

Genius,  I28ff 

Gladstone,  12 

Goethe,  129,  132 

Gjsegarious  instinct,  50,  66,  196 

Grief,  58,  80 

Habit,  63,  66,  73,  123,  137,  142, 

162;   habit  neurosis,  162 
Hall,  Stanley,  11 
Harter,  94 
Helmholtz,  7,  9,  130 
Herbart,  8f 


Heredity,  11,45,  59 

Hicks,  89 

'Higher  unit  mechanisms',  92ff,  99, 

144 
History  of  psychology,  iff 
Hobbes,  79f,  i79f 
Hume,  3,  35 
Humor,  78ff 
Hypnotism,  15 
Hypotheses,  4,  i4iff 
Hysteria,  i63f 

Imitation,  66,  i82ff 

Impulse,  54ff,  57f,  63ff,  169,  171 

Individual  differences,  11 

Infantilism,  i67f 

'Inhibition',  38ff,  112,  160,  I74f 

Instinct,  45,  56,  64ff,  200 

Interests,  74ff,  io2ff,  I32f,  20off 

Introspection,  3off 

Invention,  137 

Itard,  14 

James,  William,  i8f,  5if,  56,  132, 

146 
James-Lange  theory,  55f 
Janet,  16,  162 
Jennings,  108 
Justice,  199,  206 

Lange,  51! 

Language,  46,  49,  92,  184 

Lapses,  i66ff 

Laughter,  57,  66,  77ff 

Law  of  effect,  91,  117 

Law  of  exercise,  91,  117 

Learning,  73,  77ff,  133,  135 

Liebault,  16 

Locke,  2,  35,  82ff 

Locomotion,  49 

Love,  i7off 


INDEX 


209 


Mark  Twain,  78 

Maudsley,  14 

Maze  experiments,  121 

McDougall,  56,  62ff,  67,  7iff,  100, 

103,  188,  iQiff,  199,  205 
'Mechanism',  36ff,  44,  61,  67ff,  93, 

100,  106,  120,  124,  149,  185 
Memory,  10,  96 
'Mental  philosophy',  2,  7,  10 
Mental  defect,  I4f,  I55ff 
'Mental  set',  124 
Mental  work,  I23f 
Mesmer,  15 

Mixed  motives,  100,  169(1 
Mob  mind,  i9of 
Morality,  I99f 
Moreau  de  Tours,  14 
Morgan,  148 
Motives,  37f,  6iff,  looff,  I26f,  138, 

I49ff,  i68ff,  I79ff,  190, 199,  202ff 
Movement,  47 

Muller,  G.  E.,  96;  Miiller,  Max,  12 
Music,  60,  67f,  I72f,  200 

Napoleon,  130,  132 

'Native  capacities',  59,  74!,   129, 

132,  200,  202f 
Native  equipment  of  man,   44ff, 

61,  n,  134 

Native  reactions,  48!! 

Negative    adaptation,    85f,    ii8f, 

I34»  180 
Neuroses,  i62ff 
Newton,  5,  128,  130,  131,  136 

Observation,  97,  121,  131 
Obstruction,  102,  I37ff,  I47ff,  i6of 
Originality,  1331! 

Paranoia,  I57ff 

Parental  instinct,  50,  58,  66,  100, 
i7of 


Pathological  psychology,    13,   64, 

I53ff 
Pawlow,  82 
Pearson,  Karl,  12 
Peckham,  85 
Perception,  6,  95ff,  103,  109,  113, 

I20ff,  131,  I35f,  i85f 
Personality,  I26f,  202 
Physiological  psychology,  9 
Physiology,  4ff 
Pinel,  13 
Plateau,  5 

Play,  66,  104,  133,  I97ff,  206 
Practice,  92ff 
Problem  solution,  I39ff 
Protozoa,  84,  in,  116 
Psychasthenia,  i63ff 
Psychiatry,  13,  154 
Psychoanalysis,  167 
Psychopathology,  13,  64,  I53ff 
Punishment,  89,  91 
Puzzle-box  experiments,  27f,  9of, 

I07f 
Puzzle  experiments,  I39ff 

Reaction  time,  7,  31 

Reading,  124 

Reaction,  106;  compound,  92; 
learned,  77!?;  native,  47ff;  or- 
ganic, 5iff;  preferred,  ii5ff; 
preparatory  and  consummatory, 
4off,  55ff,  91,  138,  175;  varied, 
io8ff,  118,  140,  143 

Reasoning,  i45f,  149 

Reciprocal  inhibition,  iioff 

Reflex,  1 1  if,  183;  compound,  112: 
conditioned,  82,  88,  134,  i6i 

Reinforcement,  38ff,  12 if 

Resistance 

Rivalry,  binocular,  114,  Il8f 

Romanes,  1 1 

Ruger,  139 


2IO 


INDEX 


Sagacity,  146! 

Scott,  26 

Seguin,  14 

Selection,  I23ff 

Sensation,  5ff,  2 iff,  28f,  47 

Sentiments,  100 

Sexual  impulse,  i68ff 

Shakespeare,  128,  129,  i3of 

Sherrington,  40,  112 

Sociability,  180,  182,  i86ff,  i96ff, 

205 
Social  betterment,  206 
Social  motive,  202ff 
Social  psychology,  62ff,  I77ff 
Spalding,  26;  Spaulding,  81 
Specialization,    45,    59,    68f,   74f, 

I29f,  203 
Staircase  figure,  114 
Sublimation,  167,  I75f 
Submission,    instinct   of,    51,    65, 

171,  204 
Substitute  reaction,  161  ff 
Suggestibility,  66,  i87f 
Suppression,  i67f,  i74f 
Syllogism,  145 
Sympathy,  66,  i88f;   sympathetic 

nervous  system,  53,  56 
Synthesis,  99 


Tarde,  182 

Taussig,  182,  201 

Tendencies,  62  ff,  100,  120,  i25ff, 

I37f,  I49ff,  i68ff 
Thinking,  io9f,  139,  1455 
Thorndike,  11,  26,  27,  9of,  i83f 
'Trial  and  error',   9of,    140,    143, 

145,  i6of,  165,  184,  186 
Triplett,  86f 
'Types',  163 
Typewriting,  93,  144,  148 

Unconscious,  the,  i67f 

Veblen,  182,  201 
'Voluntary  attention',  70 

Wallas,  180 

Watson,  29,  91 

Weber,  6;  Weber's  Law,  6 

Wheatstone,  5 

Will,  I47ff 

Wundt,  8f,  55 

Yerkes,  87f 

Young,  5 

Youth,  i3of,  170,  173,  194 


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